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Background/aim: Gendered voice perception is central to gender recognition and can be a major source of distress for transgender people, yet voice and voice therapy remain marginal in medical curricula. This study examined how a digital, experiential seminar using voice-feedback applications can foster medical students' understanding of gendered voice and transgender health.

Methods: We conducted a qualitative observational study within a 135-minute online seminar, “feminize your resonance!”, embedded in a fourth-year public health module at the Medical University of Vienna. One hundred medical students used commercially available voice apps to experiment with their own pitch and resonance and submitted app screenshots and written reflections via an online learning platform. We applied a narrative analysis, based on narrative episodes in students' accounts, using a multi-stage coding process supported by qualitative data analysis software to map learning processes in several stages.

Results: Analysis yielded three interlinked themes – implicit voice awareness, technology engagement, and sharing transgender experience – organized into a five-phase learning journey from pre-existing discomfort with one’s recorded voice to social awareness with voice challenges of transgender individuals. Students moved from internal, often negative, self-evaluation to critical appraisal of app algorithms, exploration of their own vocal plasticity, and perspective-taking on the challenges of gender-affirming voice transition.

Discussion Concluding, the journey through detachment and reattachment – induced by technologically mediated feedback (TMF) – transformed students from individuals who have a voice to individuals who understand the voice as central to the construction of self and social recognition. Approaching voice through this dual lens underscores why vocal transition is not merely a technical adjustment but a form of embodied labor embedded in gendered social worlds. These findings are consistent with research on embodied simulation, which indicates that experiential engagements deepen cognitive and affective learning, especially in areas where students may initially lack familiarity or confidence. The strong empathetic responses documented in the data-including students' recognition of the challenges associated with vocal transition-reinforce recent calls to integrate “affective competencies” more systematically into medical training, particularly in relation to marginalized patient groups.

Take-home messages: Technologically mediated voice exploration can catalyze transformative learning about the role of voice in gender incongruence and support the development of affective and clinical competencies in medical education. Potentially the training facilitates communicating with transgender individuals empathically, not only related to transgender-affirming care but in all healthcare settings.

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