Original article is here (paywalled 😑). Not sure how far to take these results with such a tiny N but interesting if it can be replicated with a larger sample size. It looks like they initially hypothesized that HRT had caused the changes but ended up rejecting that idea in favor of it being the voice training.
It’s easy to not get the results you want from VFS, that’s true. Many people don’t. But no one loses their voice from it. Most of the horror stories are from a form of VFS (cricothyroid approximation) that surgeons haven’t performed for years, and even then it wasn’t the lose of voice, it was unwanted changes in voice, and failure of the surgery over time.
Put it this way. I know more people that are disappointed with their VFS than their GRS, but I know far more people that have had complications (sometimes serious) from their GRS than from their VFS.
I’m absolutely behind not getting any surgery you don’t want, particularly VFS, because it’s so often not going to give the results people want. I just take issue with the idea that it’s dangerous, because it gets in the way of people making informed choices about their own transition options. In reality it’s no more risky than any other surgery.