I see so many posts in this subforum about voice surgery plans and experiences, but I don't see as much information about what it actually does. Maybe it was explained somewhere, but I haven't run across it.
Anyway, what does voice surgery actually do? Does it only affect your natural pitch? Does it change anything else? Thanks!
I have undergone voice surgery almost a year ago and I would suggest some voice therapy before you seek surgery to learn what your before voice is capable of. I lived with a trained voice for about 35 years and because my male voice was so low, it was unable to reach the feminine range. A trained voice can become a habit and at some point it's very difficult to return to your original voice. Voice surgery isn't fool proof and it can take up to a year for your voice to stabilize. In my case, the surgery pushed my trained voice into the feminine range so I still need to use the trained voice but now it sounds correct. There are two doctors I know of who have reasonably good results and I picked Dr Haben because I knew I might need all the pitch change I could get. He also has the most descriptive web site and it should give you an idea of what's involved. By the way, my voice is the 64 year old voice in the samples. Let me know if you have any more questions.
http://www.professionalvoice.org/feminization.aspx
Dena, thank you for your information, for sharing the web page, and sharing your voice sample!
"Voice surgery" is not a monolithic thing. There are at least 4 different types that I am aware of and they all work a bit differently. The main effect is on pitch for sure, but depending on the technique, timbre will also change if vocal fold mass is reduced and even resonance can be changed to a degree. The most common techniques are however called CTA and glottoplasty (or vocal fold shortening). For almost all people getting voice surgery, a voice therapy before and after the surgery is beneficialto adapt to the voice and to change other gender markers about the voice that are not changed by surgery.
For some of us it has a profound effect on out lives..