LIFE
Speak for yourself
Voice modification program helps transgender individuals move confidently through society By Kerry Tkacik Photos by Shawn Steiner Design by Molly Apfelroth
Will Shishmanian is looking to find his voice, and he is not alone. Last spring, Shishmanian caught a glimpse of himself in a home video. The image was of a little girl running around shirtless, asking to be called Brett. At that moment, everything clicked. An old familiar concept surfaced, and Shishmanian finally began to heavily question his true identity. Over the next summer, he came to the realization that his female history did not match who he is. “Female pronouns made me cringe, and I hated my name,” he said. Today, Shishmanian, a junior at Ithaca College, is out as a transgender individual and is one of many who feel the way they communicate does not reflect their identity. He is part of a pilot group of nine people who attended the new Voice Communication Modification Program for People in the Transgender Community, a program that began Feb. 14. Transgender people do not want to attract negative attention because their voices do not match their appearance, Shishmanian said. “I want to make sure strangers, not just people who are supportive of me, will be like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s obviously a guy,’” Shishmanian said. The program, a collaborative project between
pathology students run the clinic, which the Sir Alexander Ewing Speech and Hearing Zanfordino supervises. Clinic at the college, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual The ability to pass freely and safely and Transgender Outreach and Services, and Planned Parenthood, aims to help that transition. through society is crucial to transgender people, Maurer said. The focus of the new program is to help “It’s about assisting each individual, literally, transgender people adapt socially accepted to find their voice,” Maurer said. “Whether it speech techniques in a way that does not put be a male person that had a female history or a their health at risk or require hormones. female person that had a male history, as a young Some transgender individuals try to alter person they were socialized to have certain comtheir voices on their own or seek help from a munication traits that are not particularity coded voice teacher who is not familiar with correct as the gender that they are now.” modification methods, LGBT program director Lis Maurer said. Joseph Zanfordino, a speech language pathology and audiology specialist and lecturer at the college, said speech pathology students are best suited for this specific kind of communication therapy. “They are trained to be extremely effective listeners so that they can pick up the nuances of what a person’s talking about,” he said. Junior Will Shishmanian sits in IC Square. He is part of a transgendered voice Three graduate speech modification program at Ithaca College, one of the few in the country.
Shawn Steiner/The Ithacan
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