STORRS — Speech pathologists at the University of Connecticut are helping transgender clients make a more successful transition.
The school’s Speech and Hearing Clinic offers speech therapy to teach transgender people how to develop a voice that matches the gender they identify with.
Clients spend about an hour a week in group sessions and another 90 minutes in one-on-one work with speech and language pathologists.
Clinic director Wendy Chase says it’s more involved than simply changing a voice’s pitch. She says clients work on everything from resonance to delivery to hand gestures.
Sylvia Wojcik has spent several years in therapy at UConn and elsewhere. She says she felt a sense of validation the first time someone identified her on the phone as a woman.
