Sandy has over 30 years of experience working with transgender and gender nonconforming people to help them develop voice and communication that affirm their identity and individuality. She has experience working with trans women, trans men, non-binary people, and a wide range of people along the gender spectrum. She is a longstanding ally and advocate for the transgender and non-binary community.
Many people recognize us most immediately by our voice, and our communication style. Developing a healthy, sustainable voice that affirms our gender identity, and individuality, can provide greater confidence, sense of self and strength. Sandy does a thorough intake and vocal analysis using state-of-the-art instrumentation, as well as finally tuned ears to develop a gender affirming voice and communication program based on each client’s personal desires, needs and goals. She employs a wide variety of clinical as well as performance-based approaches, extensive exercises, materials, real-life practice suggestions, objective feedback, and an enormous set of tools to help clients reach their personal communication goals as they learn to play their instrument. Her work is a balance between art and science.
Gender Affirming Voice and communication training comprises a comprehensive adjustment and fine-tuning of voice and communication to help people play their personal instrument to meet their personal goals.
Healthy Voice
Developing and maintaining a healthy, natural sustainable voice requires care. Sandy ensures that all clients have a solid understanding of vocal anatomy and physiology, as well as important factors in maintaining vocal health; e.g.,adequate hydration, deactivation of muscle tension and a healthy use of the vocal instrument.
Pitch (How high or low is the voice?)
Pitch or frequency refers to how high or low a person speaks. This is determined by how fast the vocal folds are vibrating. The average woman speaks in an average range between approximately 165Hz-220Hz, while the average man speaks in an average range between approximately 90Hz-130Hz. A voice that might be identified as gender ambiguous is generally in the area of 155Hz. While pitch is the initial auditory identifier for gender, it is not the only one factor. Simply having a higher or lower voice does necessarily change the perception of a different gender.
Inflection/Intonation (the rise and fall of the voice)
The rise and the fall of voice in conversation also contributes the the listener’s perception gender. While there is wide range of variability within and across genders, largely speaking, the female voice has wider amplitude of change (shift) than the male voice, which tends to be flatter. It is not necessarily the case that women inflect more often than men, however, the style of inflection is different. The most obvious and extreme comparison might be heard in the feminine, “Hi, how are you?!” (bold is high) and the male, “Hi how are you?” (bold is an increase in volume or energy instead of amplitude).
Resonance (vocal tone)
“The physiological gesture gives rise to the acoustic output”. Fred Minifie, PhD, CCC/SLP UW Speech and Hearing Sciences
Resonance can be described as the tone quality and placement of the sound. It is the result of different harmonics blending together and being influenced by different textures, surfaces and sizes, breath support and levels of articulatory tension. Two different guitars might sound different as a result of being a slightly different size, being made of different wood, the sound hole being a different size, or the way a string is plucked or strummed. So too with the human voice – it is played within a vessel of different size, shape and textures. In general, the female voice tends to have a heady more forward focused tone while the male tone tends to “play” more in the chest or lower throat. Light and dark are other words that might be employed in the difference in tone. Resonance, along with voice quality, is one of the aspects of voice that help a listener recognize an individual’s personal sound. Sandy has developed a set of solutions to resonance challenges that allow a client to go through a self-assessment and sound by sound diagnosis in order to approach each variable with knowledge and confidence.
Semantics and Language
Women and men express themselves in different ways. Society is, however, slowly moving towards greater non-conformity, an a less binary perception of communication. Semantics need to be explored from an individual, gender and cultural standpoint.
Nonverbal Communication
We are evolving towards fewer gender stereotypes, but people continue to associate certain nonverbal communication with one or the other gender. Working on movement, posture, gesture, eye contact, personal space and touch can help a person to feel more aligned with their gender identity. It is important, as with all aspects of communication, to learn a nonverbal communication vernacular that fits not only gender identity, but culture and personality.
Non-speech Communication
Techniques will be learned to cough, clear the throat, laugh and sneeze with a sound that affirms a person’s gender.
Distance Training
Telepractice is available to clients in Washington State who are unable to come to Sandy’s office due to distance or access challenges. Sandy is able to provide telepractice in alternative select states where licensing laws do not restrict services across state lines. Currently Sandy is exclusively providing telepractice services.
Speech Uncensored Podcast
Gender Affirming Voice Training: A Course for Clinicians
Gender Affirming Voice Training: A Course for Voice Clinicians: Sandy Hirsch, Leah Helou, Christie Block
We are excited to open registration for our final Gender Affirming Voice Training: A Course for Voice Clinicians. Sandy Hirsch is retiring in December of this year – it is our final hurrah of a course that we have taught with pride and joy since 2013. Sandy Hirsch taught it solo in 2007, Leah Helou and Sandy Hirsch taught it beginning in 2013, and Christie Block joined in 2015. AC Goldberg joined the team as a guest lecturer in 2021. It has been a journey we have taken with enormous honor, pride and humility. We have learned as much as we have taught. Join us for this last time. Registration opens on March 1, 2023!
The course this year will be a self-study offering of our 2022 event recording. The access period of the self-study will be June 1-August 31, 2023. In addition, there will be two 90-minute live Q and A Zoom sessions with Sandy Hirsch, Leah Helou, Christie Block and AC Goldberg. Registration will include the recordings as well as the Q and A sessions.
Participants will receive a certificate of registration which they will be able to use to self-report their participation to ASHA. Instructions can be found here: https://www.asha.org/certification/submitcomplianceform/.
For further information, and to register for the event, go to https://tgvoicetraining2023selfstudy.eventbrite.com/. If you have questions or need a flyer in PDF form, please contact us at tgvoicetraining@gmail.com. We very much look forward to presenting to you once more time and guiding you in your work.
Sandy Hirsch, Leah Helou and Christie Block