Can testosterone hormone make your voice deeper as an adult?

Question

I have heard that after puberty your vocal cord stops growing, can testosterone hormone make your voice deeper as an adult? Is this the same for men/women?

Answer 1

A good question.

There's a lot of documentation out there, as hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is used to help people transition from one gender to another, or to help people get back to "normal" after something has affected their previous hormone levels.

Testosterone changes the voice post-puberty, this abstract (https://www.jvoice.org/article/S0892-1997(01)00055-8/abstract) gives a little information, but you would have to pay to have full access to the article. Basically, the article talks about how HRT with testosterone deepened the voice of a man with hypogonadism.

A very good explanation of HRT and the transgender male voice is found here (https://transguys.com/features/testosterone-ftm-singing). The article warns that sometimes HRT leaves the voice permanently hoarse. Also that how deep the voice can go depends on several factors, not just the addition of testosterone.

The short answer is yes, testosterone can change an adult voice, male or female, with varying results.