The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has sanctioned a research grant exceeding $200,000 to develop a mobile application aimed at assisting transgender men in adopting a more feminine voice.
The grant was approved in November 2023 by the NIHs Deafness and Other Communication Disorders department, as initially reported by The College Fix.
The research project, led by Vesna Dominika Novak, a transgender associate professor at the University of Cincinnati, received $213,878 in funding for the period from December 2023 to November 2024. The project's objective is to develop a smartphone application that can train biological males identifying as transgender women to speak in a more feminine manner, as per the project details.
The grant's abstract states, "Transgender and gender diverse people exhibit a significantly lower quality of life than the general public." It attributes this to voice dysphoria, a condition where an individual's voice does not align with their gender identity, such as transgender women with deep voices. The abstract suggests that reducing this voice-gender incongruence can enhance the quality of life.
The abstract further argues that seeking help from speech therapists is both time-consuming and costly, with a scarcity of specialists in gender-affirming voice and communication training (GAVT). The proposed app will offer "visual-acoustic biofeedback," providing users with insights into their voice and recommendations for feminization.
The study will involve 40 biological men identifying as transgender, who will utilize the prototype app and participate in weekly online meetings, according to the grant. The researchers will assign varying levels of difficulty in "homework" throughout the week.
The abstract concludes by stating, "Upon completion, the project will result in the first GAVT software that combines visual-acoustic biofeedback of pitch and resonance with structured exercises highly requested but currently unavailable features of such software."
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