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Women's Studies: How transgender ladies learn to walk the walk

Women’s Studies: How transgender ladies learn to walk the walk By Karmah Elmusa Six people sit at attention around a small wooden table, listening carefully to speech therapist Lynette Nesbit. She’s explaining the practice of elongating single syllable words to make them sound more feminine. “It’s not ‘Hi,’” she says. “It’s more like, ‘Hiiiii‐eeee‐eee.’” “Hiii‐eeeee‐eeee,” they repeat in unison. Nesbit goes around in a circle, asking each person to try it on their own. They’re tentative, even nervous at first, but Nesbit rewards every attempt with an exclamation of praise. Slowly, the group relaxes and begins to enjoy the seminar, which is titled “Why Women Sound Like Women.” All six of the seminar’s participants were born men. They’re at various stages in transition from male‐to‐female, and most are over 50 and relatively new to womanhood. Cynthia Norwood, who is 68 years old, has been recreating herself for only eleven months, and frequents the Northern California boutique where the seminar is being held. She’s a short, demure woman who, in her sweater dress and pearls, might be someone’s elderly aunt. She sports a stylish haircut and a healthy smattering of bling‐y jewelry, and sits with her back ruler‐straight. The posture is likely a remnant of her army days—as a young man, Norwood served 14 months in a Vietnam combat unit. With Nesbit and other coaches, she’s been working not only on her image (hair, clothing, makeup, and the like), but also on movement, mannerisms, and on this particular day, voice. “I feel like recently, I can pass until I open my mouth to speak,” Norwood confides in the group. “I have a lot of work to do on that.” In 2008, the National Center for Transgender Equality surveyed 7,000 people, asking how often people strangers recognize them as transgender. Only 21 percent replied “Never,” meaning a vast majority of transgender folks often worried about “passing,” or being perceived as their chosen gender. For someone like Norwood, passing isn’t just a question of vanity. Many transgender women’s emotional, financial and physical well‐being depends on their ability to be seen as genetically female. Not passing can shut doors to employment, to friendships, and to a healthy self‐image and happiness. Depression plagues both MtoF (male‐to‐female) and FtoM (female‐to‐male) trans people—over half attempt suicide at some point in their lives. Many risk becoming victims of violence. In the early hours of Sunday, April 29, a transgender woman named Brandy Martell was shot to death in downtown Oakland. Martell was socializing in her car with three other transgender women when two men approached the window to chat. After a lengthy, cordial conversation, the women revealed they were transgender. The men hardly reacted, but then abruptly turned away and wandered back down the street. They returned two hours later, and this time, one of them stuck the barrel of an automatic weapon into a crack in Martell’s window, shooting her in the side. The other women fled as Martell tried to drive away—the gunman kept firing into