Voice Therapy and Voice Surgery

The mission of the UCLA Gender Health Program is to provide healthcare for the transgender or gender-diverse community that is sensitive to everyone’s individual needs.

Voice is important to quality of life. Our work is in alignment with The World Professional Association for Transgender Health guidelines that state, “The overall purpose of voice and communication therapy is to help clients adapt their voice and communication in a way that is both safe and authentic, resulting in communication patterns that clients feel are congruent with their gender identity and that reflect their sense of self.” We provide voice services in a gender affirming environment.

Voice Therapy

Our speech-language pathologists offer the following services:

• Voice and communication evaluation
• Voice therapy for gender congruent pitch, resonance, intonation and articulation
• Communication therapy for gender congruent communication including visual and verbal messages as well as positive and confident messages
• Apps to create a personal at-home practice lab
• Group sessions—Coming soon!

Our expert team:

• Lisa Bolden, MA, CCC-SLP
• Joey Buhler, MM, MS, CCC-SLP
• Ali Heitzman, MS, CCC-SLP
• J.R. Laing, MS, CCC-SLP

Voice Surgery

For gender health patients seeking adjustments in pitch which cannot be achieved through voice therapy alone, surgery is recommended in select cases. Within Southern California, the UCLA division of Laryngology is uniquely dedicated to improve the gender health of our patients and will seek health insurance approval and coverage whenever possible. Our surgeons offer nationally leading experience with the following phonosurgical approaches:

Vocal feminization procedures:

• Endoscopic Transoral Laser Vocal Cord Shortening Phonosurgery
• External Approaches including Framework Surgery and Cricothyroid Approximation

Vocal masculinization procedure:

• External Framework Type III Thyroplasty

Our expert team:

• Dr. Dinesh Chhetri
• Dr. Michael Holliday

Care Coordinator: At the UCLA Gender Health Program, we understand the unique challenges that gender-diverse patients face when searching for health care. Providing personalized care involves collaboration between specialty physicians, which is why we have a Care Coordinator as the first point of contact. Our dedicated Care Coordinator provides our gender-diverse patients with assistance in navigating the UCLA Health system, specifically including:

• Providing information about UCLA’s Gender Health Program.
• Taking an initial intake assessment in order to understand each person’s health care needs and goals.
• Ensuring patients are established with a primary care provider.
• Coordinating referrals for gender-affirming surgeries.
• Identifying appropriate providers and coordinating referrals for other supportive services.
• Coordinating insurance and benefits coverage.
• Advocacy within UCLA Health in all aspects of care.
• Providing linkages to UCLA and community-based resources.