Constructivism and Determinism
An examination of two conflicting philosophies to voice feminisation for transgender women
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31273/reinvention.v13i2.640Keywords:
transgender, male to female, voice therapy, voice feminsation, voice identity, gender constructionAbstract
A review of various approaches to voice feminisation for transgender women reveals two conflicting philosophies concerning voice and gender identity: determinism and constructivism. While the determinist philosophy equates sex with gender and posits that physiology determines vocal output, the constructivist philosophy views gender and vocal differences as more dependent on socio-cultural factors. Much of past research has relied on the deterministic perspective to define the voice as a set of masculine or feminine acoustic measures. This binary categorisation poses a challenge for adult transgender women who must overcome significant laryngeal changes attributed to puberty to modify their voices. Certain studies indicate voice feminisation interventions are more effective when they incorporate the self-perceived identities of transgender women into treatment strategies instead of relying solely on acoustic voice measures to label a voice as either masculine or feminine. Further research suggests that social factors – including class, ethnicity and upbringing – impact vocalisation. In light of this evidence, this paper acknowledges the need for more holistic treatments of the voice through a better integration of the constructivist perspective into voice feminisation practices. In certain reports of patient outcomes, transgender women who rate their voice as more feminine are also perceived as such by listeners. This finding demonstrates the efficacy of a patient-centred approach, which is best accomplished through a synergistic application of both determinist and constructivist philosophies to voice modification. By doing so, therapeutic interventions will likely be more effective at alleviating incongruences between the voice and self-identity for transgender women.
References
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2020 Cody Ritz
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors are responsible for obtaining permission from copyright holders for reproducing through any medium of communication those illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. Authors are also responsible for adding these permissions to the acknowledgement footnote that precedes all other notes or crediting the source and copyright of photographs or figures in the accompanying captions.
The journal's policy is to ask authors to grant us the licence to publish their work, which gives us the exclusive right both to reproduce and/or distribute their article (including the abstract) in printed, electronic or any other medium, and in turn to authorise others (including Reproduction Rights Organisations such as the Copyright Licensing Agency and the Copyright Clearance Center) to do the same. In return the author(s) assert their Moral Right to be identified as the author, and we promise that we will respect their rights as the author(s). That is, we will make sure that their name(s) is/are always clearly associated with the article and, while they do allow us to make necessary editorial changes, we will not make any substantial alteration to their article without consulting them.
Copyright remains with the author(s), however, the author(s) authorise us to act on their behalf to defend their copyright if anyone should infringe it, and to retain half of any damages awarded, after deducting our costs. The author(s) also retain the right to use their own article (provided they acknowledge the published original in standard bibliographic citation form) in the following ways, as long as they do not sell it or give it away in ways which would conflict directly with our interests. The author(s) is/are free to use their article for the internal educational or other purposes of their own institution or company; mounted on their own or their institution’s website; posted to free public servers of preprints and/or articles in their subject area; or in whole or in part, as the basis for their own further publications or spoken presentations.
If you have any queries about copyright please contact reinventionjournal@warwick.ac.uk
