It gives both an insight into a little known area of speech
therapy as well as highlighting some of the often overlooked
differences between male and female voices. EA: So, how does
speech therapy work for someone who’s transitioning? What does
it involve? EG: They go once a week, sometimes twice a week if
they’re really eager to speed things up, and they do different
vocal exercises. Pitch is one of the most important markers. Men
on average speak at 110-120 [Hertz], gender neutral is 145-165,
and women are 210-220. In most cases the goal is to try to get
to gender neutral, which basically means that if you called
somebody on the phone, and they speak in what’s known as the
gender neutral pitch, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell if
they were a man or a woman. So that’s the first piece, but along
with that, they have to learn other things, like posture and
speech intonation. Speech intonation is how much your voice goes
up and down in a sentence. Men tend to speak in a very monotone,
even tone. Women spea