Your tax dollars at work!
Vesna Novak (aka Domen Novak) is a transgender professor at the University of Cincinnati who received a grant from the National Institute of Health (NIH).
To do what?
Why, develop an app that mentally ill men can use to sound more like the women they are trying to imitate.
The NIH funded the $213,000 project using the congressional funding provisions for "Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders."
Sorry, deaf people.
(I'll admit I have no idea what that guy is saying, but it looks like he knows how stupid this grant is.)
According to the abstract, the app was needed because,
... transgender and gender diverse people exhibit a significantly lower quality of life than the generalpublic. One reason for this is voice dysphoria: distress because a person's voice does not match their gender identity (e.g., trans women with deep voices).
It will work a lot like the apps that help you learn pitch while singing, measuring tone. A visual cue lights up when the dude sounds like a lady.
While some smartphone apps have been developed for GAVT, they are limited in scope and not accepted by transgender people. A critical reason for this is lack of visual-acoustic biofeedback: visual information about how the user's voice "sounds" and how this should be modified during exercises. This project will first develop novel GAVT software that combines visual-acoustic biofeedback about pitch and resonance (two main indicators of voice femininity/masculinity) with exercises for these targets.
I like to imagine the visual-acoustic biofeedback happens when the men can sing "This Is Me" in a perfect woman-like falsetto just like the bearded-lady in The Greatest Showman.
I'd also like to go on record saying that if the bearded lady song isn't a feature included in the app, I'll be very upset.
But, I'd settle for a womanly version of Aerosmith's "Dude Looks Like a Lady." It probably wouldn't be too far removed from Steven Tyler after all.
Because if they're going to spend my tax dollars this way, I'd at least like to be entertained.
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