Do Transgender Women and Men Have Worse Health Outcomes if Their Voices Are Perceived as Inconsistent with Their Gender Identity

Abstract

Transgender people in the United States are more likely to experience worse overall health than cisgender (non-transgender) people. Within the U.S. transgender population, differences in expressions of gender identity are linked to health disparities. In social interactions, people typically ascribe gender to others by using cues from embodied characteristics associated with sex differences, such as voices, body shape, and hair growth patterns. Voices, particularly gendered voices, can shape relative social advantage and disadvantage. In this brief, PRC postdoctoral fellow Danya Lagos isolates the link between voice-based gender misclassification and patterns of health inequality within the transgender population. She finds that for both transgender women and transgender men, being perceived as a woman over the phone is associated with worse overall health.