Gender and voice perception

What does the voice tell us about a person and what do we mean by 'feminine', 'masculine', or 'gender neutral' features in a voice?

The voice is an expressive instrument, telling us lots about a person without us having to see them in-person. What can you tell about someone when you hear them on the radio or on the telephone? Can you guess their age, social status, emotional state, or gender? It’s likely that you could make some predictions. But what do we hear in terms of gender when someone speaks or sings?

Each person’s voice use is unique and broad generalisations are all that are really possible without referencing any one particular speaker. Generally though, research has found that there are a few key vocal indicators that listeners perceive as more feminine or masculine.

Average speaking pitch

This is the average frequency of the voice as someone speaks, i.e. whether someone speaks in a high or a low voice. More feminine perceived voices tend to lie higher in the range, and more masculine voices are lower, with those perceived as being gender neutral lying somewhere in the middle. Roughly speaking, feminine-perceived voices sit around G3-A3 on a piano keyboard, gender neutral voices are around E3-F#3, and masculine-perceived voices lie around A2-C3.

Intonation/volume

The way we speak is rarely monotone and robotic, instead we move up and down in pitch and get louder or quieter to convey meaning and emotion. We might glide up in pitch to emphasise an important word in a sentence – “Where were you last night?!” or we might add volume to emphasise our strength of feeling. Generally, feminine-perceived voices make use of a wider pitch range for expression, whereas masculine-perceived voices make more use of volume as an expressive feature.

Brighter / darker sounds

As we speak vowels or consonants, the way we pronounce these can be altered to be brighter or darker. Try this for yourself, place the tip of your tongue behind your top front teeth, and make an ‘Ssss’ sound. Now move the tip of your tongue slightly further back to rest on the ridge behind your top front teeth and make the ‘Ssss’ sound again. Can you hear a change in the sound? It should now sound darker. You can make adjustments to brightness/darkness of your vowels and consonants to change their sound. Those wishing to modify to a more masculine-perceived voice will often use darker vowels and consonants, whereas those aiming to feminise their vocal presentation will use brighter consonants and vowels.

Resonance

Our voice resonates in our body, not just in the throat as you might expect. Try this out for yourself by making an ‘Ahhh’ sound on a very low note. As you do this, put a hand on the front of your chest – do you feel a slight buzz under your hand? There are many resonating cavities in the body that are used by your voice, you have just felt one of them in action. Generally, more masculine-perceived voices will aim to feel their voice resonate more in their chest, whereas more feminine-perceived voices will aim to feel their voice resonate more in their head and throat.

Other cues

The pitch and tone of your voice is not the end of the story when communicating, we also use word choice, sentence length and physical communication to express ourselves. Although these are not strictly speaking voice-related, some trans people choose to involve these in their vocal transition work. Altering the way that you speak and what you say can be a useful combination in changing the way you present vocally.

The voice is a many-faceted instrument, and every instrument is unique – we’re all difference shapes and sizes so there are no two voices which will sound the same. The way that we use our voice is also highly individual and our life experiences and the way we’d like to be perceived will influence the way we sound to others. Gender is one aspect of our vocal identity, but we also signal other parts of our character along with our needs and wants using our voice. Have a listen to those around you – you might notice more than you’d expect when you really start listening to the way people use their voices!

If you want more information, or to book voice training with Kathleen, find out more and get in touch HERE.

To read more about gender affirming voice training click HERE