| Abstract | Speech-Language Pathologists (SLP), lay cisgender people, and lay transgender people.
Methods/Design: Observational and cross-sectional study (approved by the Research Ethics Committee n. 5.689.940). The sample of the study was composed of 51 SLPs (SG), 64 lay cisgender people (CG), and 56 lay transgender people (TG). TG was subdivided into 24 transgender women (TWG), 17 transgender men (TMG), and 15 non-binary people (NBG). Participants classified the voice gender of four K-Pop singers, based on four audio recordings, in sung voice, considering three possibilities: female, male, and neutral. Of the four audios, two were female, and two were male. Data analysis was performed by associating the perception of voice gender with the gender of the singer and with the perception of voice gender categorized as neutral and non-neutral (female or male). Chi-squared tests were used with a significance level of 5%.
Results: One male voice was perceived as gender-neutral by SG and a female by CG (p=0.001), while another male voice was perceived as gender-neutral by TG and female by SG (p=0.035). Regarding the female voices, SG and TG classified them as gender-neutral, but CG identified it as a female voice (p<0.001), and no differences were obtained for other female voices. In the subgroups, NBG perceived a female voice as female and gender-neutral by TMG (p=0.049), without association for perception of voice gender for other voices. There was an association between the perception of voice gender-neutral by the SG and non-neutral by the CG for a male voice (p=0.005) and a female voice (p<0.001), with no association for the perception of gender-neutral of the other two voices. In subgroups, only one male voice classified as non-neutral gender was associated with TWG (p=0.026).
Conclusions: Female and male voices were perceived as gender-neutral by SG and TG, with agreement on female voices but not on male ones. In the specific subgroups, a female voice was considered gender-neutral by TMG. The gender classification of female and male voices was associated with gender-neutral only by the SG.
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