How intonation and articulation cues impact gender perception for cisgender and transgender speakers

Gender identities beyond cisgender male and female are poorly represented in speaker gender perception research. Incorporating transgender speakers may reveal speech characteristics that extend beyond hetero-cis-normative standards and better reflect listeners' real-world experiences and cognitive representations of gender. This study compared how intonation and articulation impact listeners’ judgements of speaker gender identity and masculinity/femininity using cisgender male and female, transfeminine, and transmasculine speakers. Cisgender speakers' fundamental and formant frequencies were shifted to gender-ambiguous range and transfeminine and transmasculine speakers to prototypically cisgender female or male range, respectively. Listeners judged speaker gender in conditions that either removed fundamental frequency variation, frequencies above 500 Hz, or both cues. There were nonuniform effects of intonation and articulatory modifications on listener perceptions of gender across speaker groups. However, articulation influenced listener perception more than intonation. When listeners heard articulatory as compared to intonation cues, gender identification scores were generally higher for all speaker groups and masculinity/femininity scores more aligned with cisgender female and transfeminine speakers’ gender identities. Although most prior work with transgender speakers has focused on intonation, articulation can substantially impact gender perception and should be considered in gender affirming communication training.