A transgender person successfully undergoing a sex reassignment surgery can now also undergo voice change surgery in the city. Dr Nupur Kapoor Nerurkar, voice surgeon and the head of voice clinic at Bombay Hospital said that nearly 10 to 12 transgender persons from Maharashtra have undergone trans voice change surgery and it is helping them to get a feminine voice. However, she rued lack of adequate awareness about this surgery. Dr Nerurkar has conducted over 60 trans voice change surgeries in the last year across India.
Dr Nerurkar said that sex reassignment from a woman to man doesn’t need this surgery as testosterone is used and there is a change in voice pitch. However, the other way round, the use of oestrogen doesn’t result in voice change and either there’s a need for voice modulation therapy or a surgery to correct the pitch; else, transgender persons need to keep pretending to talk in a feminine tone.
The voice pitch for women is about 230 hertz (Hz) and 100-130Hz for men. Earlier, the surgery to tighten the vocal cords like a guitar’s strings was done through the neck but the stitches used to come off fast. This current surgery, as per Dr Nerurkar, has a greater success rate. She further explained that most women don’t want any surgery marks on their neck either.
The new operation, introduced by German surgeon Jurgen Wendler, is done via endoscopy which does not involve any cut or scars. “We suture by reducing vocal fold length by 50%, which increases the pitch, and patients are not allowed to talk for two weeks,” Dr Nerurkar explained.
