Fundamental frequency of voice of male-to-female transsexuals perceptually judged as female

Abstract

In order to estimate the target pitch range in transsexual voice therapy, spoken sentences and sustained vowels /a/ and /i/ were recorded from 119 male-to-female transsexuals (MtF) and 32 biological females (F), and fundamental frequency (F0) was analyzed. The MtF speakers were classified into two groups: one perceptually judged as female, and those judged as male, based on perceptual judgments made by 100 listening subjects. The average F0 of sentences recorded from the MtFs perceived as female was 217 Hz, and that of vowels was 270 Hz. These values were comparable with those recorded from the biological female speakers, which were 217 Hz for sentences and 243 Hz for vowels. More than 70% of the MtFs were judged as male even though their F0 was in the same range of that produced by the biological female speakers. This result shows that F0 is an important but not sufficient factor for judging a voice as female.