Abstract
Phonosurgery performed on transsexuals has the purpose of raising the voice pitch (f0) and is performed on male subjects who carried out their transformation into the female sex. Since the feminizing hormone therapy has little or no effect on increasing the f0 and since not all MtF patients get satisfactory results with the setting (natural or educated by a speech pathologist) of a phonatory vibration in the falsetto register, phonosurgery is required as the voice pitch is not sufficiently high and generally does not suit the new status of transgender sex, limiting significantly the communicative potential.
An increase in the mean fundamental frequency of glottal vibration (f0) can be achieved by three different surgical procedures:
-
1.
Mass reduction of the vocal folds
-
2.
Tension increase of the vocal folds
-
3.
Shortening the length of the vibrating portion of the vocal folds
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Davies S, Goldberg JM (2006) Clinical aspects of transgender speech feminilization and masculinization. Int J Transgenderism 9(3–4):167–196
Spencer LE (1988) Speech characteristics of male-to-female transsexuals a perceptual and acoustic study. Folia Phoniatr (Basel) 40:31–42
Wolfe VI, Ratusnik DL, Northrop G (1980) Vocal characteristics of male transsexuals on a masculinity-femininity dimension. In: The proceedings of the Congress of the International Association of Logopedics and Phoniatrics, vol 1. pp 469–474
Dacakis G, Davies S, Oates JM, Douglas JM, Johnston JR (2013) Transsexual voice questionnaire (male-to-female). J Voice 27(3):312–320
Hancock A, Owen K, Siegfriedt L, Brundage S (2009) Reliability and validity of the transgender self-evaluation questionnaire. Paper presented at: Voice Foundation’s Annual Symposium, Philadelphia
Peterson GE, Barney HL (1952) Control methods used in a study of the vowels. J Acoust Soc Am 24:175–184
Ladefoged P, Broadbent D (1957) Information conveyed by vowels. J Acoust Soc Am 29:98–104
Coleman RO (1971) Male and female voice quality and its relationships to vowel formant frequencies. J Speech Hear Res 14:565–577
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding authors
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer-Verlag Italia
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Cavalot, A.L., Cossu, D. (2015). Feminization Laryngoplasty: Surgical Therapy. In: Trombetta, C., Liguori, G., Bertolotto, M. (eds) Management of Gender Dysphoria. Springer, Milano. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-88-470-5696-1_15
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-88-470-5696-1_15
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Milano
Print ISBN: 978-88-470-5695-4
Online ISBN: 978-88-470-5696-1
eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)