Does your voice clash with your gender identity? If so, experts are at the ready with information and advice. Case in point: a recent foray for folx at the University of Colorado Boulder.
The school held a January 25-26 symposium for the sexually sophisticated who orate erroneously. Advertisement for the Gender Voice and Communication Training Workshop 2025 listed eleven “learning objectives.” As a sample, participants pining for talk less testicular or verbalization less vaginal were promised they’d do the following:
- Name the strengths and limitations of gender-affirming voice surgery
- Explain the role of [speech-language pathologists] in people undergoing gender-affirming voice surgery and what is involved in pre- and post-operative therapy
- Identify multiple gender-affirming target areas
- Describe methods to integrate metatherapy and counseling perspectives in gender-affirming voice care, particularly for multiple-marginalized and neurodivergent [transgender and gender-diverse] individuals
- Participate in exercises pertaining to varied gender-affirming voice goals and general vocal habilitation needs
- Explain and describe different parameters of voice, including but not limited to: pitch, intonation, resonance, and [the rhythmic aspect of language] as they relate to gender-affirming voice care
Most magnificently:
- Describe what formants are, and implement three different approaches for shifting vocal formants for gender euphoria
The message was undeniably empowering: Don’t let your scrotum mansplain to your larynx; keep your vocal chords unoppressed by your ovaries.
And for the curious among you, Merriam-Webster defines “formant” thusly:
a characteristic component of the quality of a speech sound
specifically: any of several resonance bands held to determine the phonetic quality of a vowel
The seminar was certifiably medical: It was hosted by the School of Medicine’s Department of Otolaryngology — Head and Neck Surgery. Per its webpage, the program is dedicated to “delivering cutting-edge clinical care of the highest quality for all conditions of the ear, nose, throat and head and neck cancer,” as well as to research and the training of future leaders. Furthermore, it’s committed to “creating a welcoming and inclusive community.”
The university as a whole is devoted to inclusivity, and it’s far from alone in the collegiate sphere:
University of Colorado Warns Students to Be Woke, Calls Misgendering ‘an Act of Violence’
Colorado University Hosts Teacher Training to Fight the ‘White Supremacy’ of ‘Productivity’
Turn Your Head and Cough: College Course Teaches Male Trans Students How to Hack and Sneeze Like Ladies
State University Offers Exclusive Housing for Trans Students and ‘Voice Feminization’ Services
State University Teaches ‘Transgender Etiquette,’ Tells Students Nearly 50 Percent of Men May Be Bisexual
CU Boulder’s conference wasn’t its first voice-revamping rodeo. The school’s Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences department offered Gender Voice Training: A Workshop Led by Gender-Diverse Speech-Language Pathologists in 2022. Student registration was priced at $100; for transgender or nonbinary students, it was free.
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As for last weekend’s extravaganza, “transgender and gender nonconforming” attendees received complimentary admission, too. In addition to teaching them how to authentically alter their speech, the convocation delved into vocal disorders and their effects on transgender individuals. Still, at the heart was a theme of reinvention.
Of course, surgery to subjectively improve one’s presentation is nothing new. But voice modification, in this case, seems categorically different. It isn’t merely a refinement; it’s a correction aimed to set right a person’s foundational identity.
Society has substantially evolved. For a very long time, an edict floated in the ether: “Be yourself.” Modernity has grabbed that idea by the throat. And for some — including doctors and soon-to-be patients at the University of Colorado Boulder — a new dictum has emerged: In order to be yourself, you have to change yourself.
-ALEX
See more content from me:
University’s Event Promoting Transgender ‘Littles’ Claims Children ‘Know What Feels Good to Them’
Freedom Feels Different in a Red State: Alabama Launches Ammo Vending Machines
UCLA Med School Students Are Taught That Modern Science Is ‘White Science’ by Pro-Hamas Lecturer
Find all my RedState work here.
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