Trans Voice: Does HRT affect the voice?

Hormone replacement therapy causes so many gender affirming effects in the body. But how will HRT affect your voice?

HRT for Trans Women

For trans women who choose to do HRT, the first step is usually a testosterone blocker. These medications are often diuretics, which cause you to lose a lot of water, and can dehydrate your voice. Dehydrated vocal folds hinder your progress if you’re working on transitioning your voice, so it’s important to counteract those effects by drinking a lot of water. Interested in learning more about why hydration is so important? Watch my video on vocal health.

While you are doing HRT, you’ll start to feel physical and emotional changes, but unfortunately, there won’t be any feminizing effects on the voice.

When testosterone is produced in the body during puberty, the vocal folds get longer and thicker permanently, causing a lower pitch. Testosterone also causes the cartilage of the larynx to grow, which changes the sound quality of the voice.

Taking estrogen will not reduce the size or thickness of the vocal folds or the size or shape of the larynx. Luckily, through vocal training, it’s absolutely possible to change your voice by manipulating different parts of your vocal tract, and training your voice to speak at a higher pitch.

HRT for Trans Men

The timeline for trans men who are looking for changes in their pitch can be very quick! Those who choose to take testosterone can be will experience a drop in their pitch range within weeks or a few months. Throughout the process, their voices might crack, or feel weak or hoarse.

Testosterone will cause growth in the vocal folds that will be permanent, but the growth of the larynx will be limited due to cartilage ossification, or hardening.

So because the vocal folds, which are inside the larynx, get bigger, and the larynx stays the same size, some trans men might not get the sound quality that they would if their larynx were also getting larger. So because of that, some trans men will be interested in vocal training as well to again manipulate the vocal tract to achieve a different sound.

Learn more about the effects of T here.

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