Associations between the Transsexual Voice Questionnaire (TVQ ) and self-report of voice femininity and acoustic voice measures.

Background: The Transsexual Voice Questionnaire (TVQ ) was designed to capture the voice-related perceptions of individuals whose gender identity as female is the opposite of their birth-assigned gender (MtF women). Evaluation of the psychometric properties of the TVQ is ongoing.

Aims: To investigate associations between TVQ scores and (1) self-perceptions of voice femininity and (2) acoustic parameters of voice pitch and voice quality in order to evaluate further the validity of the TVQ . A strong correlation between TVQ scores and self-ratings of voice femininity was predicted, but no association between TVQ scores and acoustic measures of voice pitch and quality was proposed.

Methods & Procedures: Participants were 148 MtF women (mean age 48.14 years) recruited from the La Trobe Communication Clinic and the clinics of three doctors specializing in transgender health. All participants completed the TVQ and 34 of these participants also provided a voice sample for acoustic analysis. Pearson product-moment correlation analysis was conducted to examine the associations between TVQ scores and (1) self-perceptions of voice femininity and (2) acoustic measures of F0, jitter (%), shimmer (dB) and harmonic-to-noise ratio (HNR).

Outcomes & Results: Strong negative correlations between the participants' perceptions of their voice femininity and the TVQ scores demonstrated that for this group of MtF women a low self-rating of voice femininity was associated with more frequent negative voice-related experiences. This association was strongest with the vocal-functioning component of the TVQ . These strong correlations and high levels of shared variance between the TVQ and a measure of a related construct provides evidence for the convergent validity of the TVQ . The absence of significant correlations between the TVQ and the acoustic data is consistent with the equivocal findings of earlier research. This finding indicates that these two measures assess different aspects of the voice-related experience.

Conclusions & Implications: Evidence supporting the validity of the TVQ is strong and indicates that it is a sound measure for capturing the MtF woman's self-perceptions of her vocal functioning and how her voice impacts on her everyday life.