Voice and Communication for the Transgender/Transsexual Client: Presenting the WPATH Standing Committee on Voice and Communication

Abstract

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health is an international organization that has a purpose of providing guidelines for safe, effective, and evidence-based practice for the Transgender/Transsexual client throughout the world in all aspects of care, including medical, psychological, voice, speech, and other services. Newly formed and accepted as an integral part of the organization, the Voice and Communication Committee is comprised of four speech-language pathologists (SLPs) from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia. This article introduces SLPs to this committee and its important work in providing guidelines for offering voice and communication therapy to all Transgender (TG) clients.

Reflections on (in)visibility and (in)audibility in music therapy: Who? How? To whom?

“…Wootan, n.d.) and scholarly (e.g. Adler et al, 2019) texts are available including exercises that can support in developing these other features of what is widely perceived as masculine speech. The different sound of trans masculine people's voices compared to those of cis men can be understood as a difference in grain, the different sounds being the soundings of difference in body parts associated with vocal production.…”

“…However, it can also be argued that these differences are not necessarily genetic but, rather, epigenetic: that differences between the way Assigned Male at Birth (AMAB) men and AFAB men sound relate to a difference in their bodies. AFAB children and young people are typically trained to use a higher pitch within their range and to undulate pitch more than AMAB contemporaries (Adler et al, 2019;Linklater, 2000). When trans men opt for Speech and Language Therapy, one of the topics frequently explored is speaking in something closer to a monotone.…”

“…The difference in physiology heard in the voices of some AFAB trans and nonbinary people who take testosterone compared to the voices of cis men could be conceptualised as a difference in grain. Texts about developing more 'masculine' speech (including sections of Adler et al, 2019;Wootan, n.d.) could therefore be seen as providing techniques to retrain the physiology to access a different grain. In this sense, transition can be understood as potentially audible, depending on how a listener makes sense of accent, intonation and other speech habits.…”

Working with Transgender Clients: Considerations for Psychological Testing and Assessment

“…There are numerous resources specifically targeted for transgender clients. Protocols have been created that outline procedures for conducting psychotherapy for both individual and group settings (Adler, Hirsch, & Mordaunt, 2012;Bockting, Knudson, & Goldberg, 2006;Mizock, & Lewis, 2008). Transgender clients may struggle to connect with professionals who lack competence and compassion for working with this population (Sanchez, Sanchez, & Danoff, 2009).…”

Handlungsempfehlungen von Trans*-Klientinnen zur Beziehungsgestaltung in der stimmtherapeutischen Arbeit

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Trans*idente 1 Menschen werden in den letzten Jahren sichtbarer [1,2] und in den letzten drei Jahrzehnten nahmen die Publikationen zu Stimm-und Kommunikationstraining bzw. Stimmtherapie 2 mit trans*identen Klientinnen stetig zu [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]. Allerdings gehört der Bereich der Stimmtransition in der praktischen Tätigkeit von Logopäd*innen 3 nach wie vor zu den selteneren und als herausfordernd empfundenen Arbeitsinhalten [6, 13, 14].

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