Características vocais espectrográficas e videolaringoestroboscópicas de mulheres transexuais

Abstract

Objective: To compare the spectrographic vocal characteristics of transsexual women with those of cisgender women and to analyze the videolaryngostroboscopic characteristics of transsexual women. Methods: Retrospective, cross-sectional and quantitative study with people between 19 and 44 years old. A sample composed of images of videolaryngostroboscopic of 15 transsexual women was evaluated by three otorhinolaryngologists rated the images on a range of parameters, for statistical analysis, we used the t-test, ANOVA F-test, with a significance level of 5% (p ≤ 0.05). Three speech therapist judges analyzed spectrographic images of 31 transsexual women and 32 cisgender women and the T test was used for independent samples with a significance level of 5%. Results: In the 15 images of videolaryngostroboscopic, almost half of the participants had complete glottic closure and the other half had different types of glottic slits, and most of the individuals had an equal vertical level of PPVV approach. In the broadband spectrographic of the 32 cisgender women, the following aspects were significantly better than in the group of transsexual women: intensity of the color of the tracing in all evaluated items; definition and regularity of formants 1, 2, and 4; bandwidth of all formants; and regularity of the tracing in all evaluated items. The 31 transsexual women showed significance for antiresonance immediately above the first formant and at low frequencies. Narrowband spectrographic of the 32 cisgender women, the following aspects were significantly better than in the group of transsexual women: intensity of the color of the tracing in all evaluated items; presence of noise in medium and high frequencies and in the spectrogram as a whole; replacement of harmonics by noise at medium and high frequencies and in the spectrogram as a whole; definition and regularity of harmonics at high frequencies; number of harmonics at high frequencies and in the spectrogram as a whole; and presence of subharmonics at high frequencies. Conclusion: In transsexual women, aspects compatible with increased nasality were higher and aspects related to noise were lower, suggesting vocal adjustments in an attempt at vocal feminization. The other aspects showed male characteristics, indicating that transsexual women need professional assistance to feminize their voices.