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A spectrogram is a visual representation of sound, organized by pitch and volume. This representation of sound can be used to “read” what was actually said, as well as other applications, as the science is very straightforward and rooted in math and physics. For my final examin phonology class as an undergrad, for instance, I had to read a spectrogram and write down what had been said without listening to the audio. It was around this time I realized the visuals I see in response to sound corresponded to real information (i.e., they wre not hallucinations but synesthesia). Anyway, I did well, and my paper on Bulgarian got me out of having to retake an undergrad-level phonology course for my speech pathology license.
The key concept in resonance though is that there is a fundamental frequency being generated, in the form of noise, from usually the larynx and sometimes through audible air pressure. This fundamental frequency then resonates at higher frequencies as it moves out of the skull through the nose and mouth. Your tongue also then shapes the air resonance further, in an extremely dynamic fashion, encoding information into this noisy airstream that can then be decoded by another person’s brain that has been trained in the auditory interpretation of English (i.e., an English speaker, including “can only understand” passive speakers).
That resonance cannot happen if the fundamental is being constantly disrupted due to vocal crowding and overgrowth of the thyrovocalis, which would dampen the lamina propria from inside, as well as other sources of crowding caused by growth of cartilage in the context of a constrained and female-sized overal hyoidal-laryngeal space. This results in repeated dampening of transmasc voice disorder. I am not diagnosing Gruffin. It’s also possible Gruffin had a random virus that took out part of her laryngeal nerve function from then to now. But it is consistent with the direct and predictable effects of the testosterone we know she is taking, only. So if Gruffin has some comorbidity, this may not be her story, but this is someone’s story, and either way, if I were Gruffin, I would be very concerned by this change. The finding of resonance change between the two recordings is not a diagnosis but an objective finding any old linguist could have made.
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