Trans Icon, Transit Icon: Bernie Wagenblast | Speaking Freely
Mar 12, 2026
If you've ever taken the New York City subway, ridden the AirTrain at Newark Liberty, or commuted between Philadelphia and South Jersey on PATCO, you've heard Bernie Wagenblast's voice—likely multiple times a day, without ever knowing her name.
Bernie is a voice actor, journalist, and podcaster who came out publicly as a trans woman in January 2023, at 66 years old, after knowing she was trans since the age of four. Since then, she's become one of the most visible trans advocates in the United States, appearing in The New York Times, on CBS Mornings, and in media outlets as far away as Japan and Kazakhstan.
I sat down with Bernie for an episode of Speaking Freely, my interview series about trans voice, trans advocacy, and trans liberation. We talked about what it means to be visibly trans in an extraordinarily public way, how she developed and maintains two distinct voices, and what it was finally like to transition in her 60s after six decades of waiting.
Watch the Full Interview
Prefer to read? Keep scrolling for the full breakdown of our conversation.
Who Is Bernie Wagenblast?
Bernie started her career in radio and has spent the past decade and a half working as a voice actor. She is one of the voices of the New York City subway, the AirTrain at Newark Liberty International Airport, and PATCO, the transit line running between Philadelphia and southern New Jersey.
That makes her, as I said in our interview, one of the most heard voices in the entire northeastern United States.
She's also a journalist, hosts several podcasts and newsletters about transportation, and (as she put it) considers herself semi-retired, though she's still working hard for trans rights.
Bernie socially transitioned just over three years ago and has described it as "a positive adventure." You can watch the short documentary In Transit (3:47), created for International Day of Transgender Visibility in 2024, for a beautiful glimpse into her story in her own words.
The Decision to Be Visibly Trans
Bernie kept her trans identity private for 66 years. So when she came out, why do it so publicly?
Her answer gets to something really fundamental about trans advocacy. She told me:
"It's always a lot easier to hate something or someone that you don't know. And once you get to know someone, it makes it more difficult to hate someone."
Bernie's background in communications gave her a framework for thinking about visibility as education. She had hoped, at most, that some New York media might pick up her story during Pride Month. She did not expect what actually happened: coverage in The New York Times, CBS Mornings, and outlets around the world.
You can read The New York Times profile of Bernie here, and watch her CBS Mornings "Note to Self" segment here.
What strikes me about Bernie is that she chose visibility not for herself, but as a gift to others, including people who don't know any trans people and might only know us through political rhetoric. Her decades of experience in broadcasting gave her a clear sense of how to use a platform, and she's used it beautifully.
Bernie's Trans Voice Training Journey
As a gender-affirming voice teacher, I obviously had a lot of questions about Bernie's voice, and she had a lot to say.
Voice has always been central to Bernie's professional life, so developing a more feminine-sounding voice was something she cared deeply about. She worked with speech therapists and found that both brought her to a plateau she wasn't sure how to move past. From there, she continued largely on her own.
One of her most effective self-directed practices? Narrating her drives.
"I would take time while I was driving and I would narrate my trips as I was going someplace and just say, oh, I'm driving down the street now. We're going to be passing the school on the left and coming up to the traffic light at Lincoln Avenue."
And why driving specifically? Because of what it made possible:
"It was these short spurts where my voice wouldn't get tired. I didn't have to be self-conscious that anyone was listening to me, and I could just give it a shot and play games with it."
I love this so much because it's actually excellent voice training advice. Short, frequent, low-stakes practice is one of the most effective ways to build new vocal habits, and doing it while driving removes the self-consciousness that can make practice feel fraught.
Bernie also reflected on something I hear from a lot of trans women in voice training:
"A lot of folks sometimes give up because you do reach plateaus and you feel, I can't get past this, this bump in the road. This is as far as I can go. And it's the practice combined with the patience that you have to realize this is going to take a long time in most cases."
Plateaus are not the end of progress, they're a normal part of the process. If you're in one right now, Bernie's story is a good reminder that the voice you want is still on the other side.
Bernie also mentioned something I want to validate: she still considers her voice a work in progress, even after years of dedicated work. Voice training is a practice, not a destination. The goal is a voice that keeps becoming more authentically yours.
If you're in the early stages of your own transgender voice training journey and want a structured place to start, my free one-hour masterclass Change the Gender of Your Voice: No Hormones or Surgeries Required is a great first step. It'll give you a clear picture of what voice training actually involves and where to begin.
Maintaining Two Distinct Voices
Here's something that makes Bernie's trans voice training story genuinely unusual: she didn't just need to develop a feminine speaking voice. She also needed to preserve her broadcast voice, the one that's already recorded thousands of announcements across multiple transit systems.
That meant surgery was completely off the table, and it also meant she was doing something some voice training frameworks don't really account for: intentionally developing and maintaining two distinct vocal registers.
She described switching between them as something she now does consciously and deliberately, including as a party trick at public appearances, where she'll shift from her everyday feminine voice into the unmistakable transit announcement cadence mid-sentence.
What I want to highlight here is that this isn't unusual in the way people might assume. We all adjust our voices depending on context. We speak differently on the phone than we do with close friends, differently in a job interview than at a family dinner. Bernie has just made that shift intentional and highly practiced in a very visible way.
And (as I said to Bernie in our conversation), if you're a woman, all of your voices are your woman's voice. The subway voice and the speaking voice are both authentically hers. That's not a contradiction. That's just range.
Transitioning Later in Life
Bernie socially transitioned at 66. She's known she was trans since she was four years old. That's more than six decades of waiting.
I asked her what finally made her decide that now was the time. Her answer was both practical and deeply moving:
"If I were on my deathbed and I had never transitioned, would I be feeling regret about that? And I believed I would have felt regret, had I not transitioned and would have wondered about, well, what would that have been like?"
She also acknowledged the fears that come with transitioning later in life, like not knowing what you'll lose, how people will react, and what your professional world will do. Bernie was fortunate to be semi-retired and didn't have to navigate an office environment or an HR department. She's clear-eyed about that privilege.
But she also notes that the fears, while real, did not match the outcome. The acceptance she received far exceeded her expectations.
I have students in their 60s who always say, "I'm probably the oldest person you work with." They never are. Transitioning later in life is far more common than the cultural narrative suggests, and Bernie's story is powerful evidence that it's never too late to find a voice—and a life—that feels like yours.
Bernie also walked me through how gradual her transition actually was. She started low-dose hormones in 2017, legally changed her name (an easy shift since Bernie works for both Bernard and Bernadette), and updated her gender markers, with a delightful assist from a birth certificate that had apparently listed her as female since birth. Social transition was the last step, not the first.
Transition is rarely a light switch. It's usually a long, careful, deeply personal process that looks different for every person who goes through it.
Finding Community as an Older Trans Woman
I asked Bernie for advice she'd give to trans women in their 60s looking to build community. Her answer centred on support groups, which played a huge role in her own journey, and on the unexpected ways community forms around visibility.
Because of how publicly she came out, healthcare providers now sometimes connect her with their patients who are beginning to transition at a similar age, asking if she'd be willing to talk. She always says yes.
She also told me about a neighbour who read the New York Times story and reached out to say, "I think I'm trans too." Bernie invited her over. That neighbour is now one of her closest friends.
That story moved me, and I think it points to something important: visibility creates permission. When people see someone like themselves living openly, it can give them access to something they didn't know was possible for them.
Bernie also made a point I really appreciated about the difference in needs between generations of trans people. The advice she received from an older trans woman—"don't transition unless you absolutely have to"—came from a different era, one shaped by much greater risk and much less support. It may have been right for that time. It isn't necessarily the right advice now.
What she recommends instead: therapy, yes, but also community with other trans people who have lived experience. Talking with people who've actually been through it is irreplaceable.
Trans People Are Part of Everyday Life
At the end of every Speaking Freely episode, I give my guests space to speak freely about whatever's on their mind. Here's what Bernie wanted to leave people with:
"Trans people are part of everyday life. That's one of the things that I try to emphasize. And those subway announcements are the manifestation of being part of everyday life. If you're a New Yorker who takes the subway to and from work or school, chances are you hear me at least two times a day."
She described being asked to announce the inauguration of New York City's new mayor on January 1st, introducing herself and then shifting into her transit voice ("please stand away from the platform edge") and receiving a round of applause that, she said, really warmed her heart.
Trans people show up in every corner of public life, whether or not they're visible as trans. We always have. Bernie has just made that undeniably, beautifully, publicly true for millions of commuters who may not have known it.
At a moment when trans people are under significant political attack in the United States and in countries around the world, that visibility matters. As Bernie put it: it's much harder to hate someone you actually know.
Key Takeaways from Bernie's Story
1. Plateaus Are Part of the Process
Every voice training journey hits walls. Persistence through plateaus (not avoiding them) is what leads to growth. Keep practicing even when progress feels invisible.
2. Short, Frequent Practice Beats Long, Infrequent Sessions
Bernie's car narration practice is a great example of distributed, low-stakes voice work. Small daily moments add up to significant change over time.
3. You Can Have More Than One Voice
All your voices are authentically yours. Code-switching is not inauthenticity but a skill, and in Bernie's case, a remarkable one.
4. It's Never Too Late to Transition
Bernie transitioned at 66. There is no expiry date on becoming yourself. The fears are real, and the other side of them is real too.
5. Visibility Is a Form of Advocacy
Bernie's public presence has given other trans women permission to come forward, seek support, and find community. Being seen creates space for others to be seen.
Conclusion
What I love most about Bernie's story is how it refuses easy categorisation. She's a trans woman and a transit icon. She has a feminine speaking voice and a broadcast voice she's maintained for decades. She transitioned at 66 and built a community she didn't know she'd find. She's a voice professional who found her own voice journey unexpectedly hard and kept going anyway.
Her story is an argument, made in the most undeniable way possible, that trans people are part of everyday life and that transgender voice training is never just about acoustics. It's about coming home to yourself, in whatever voice that takes.
Watch the full interview above, and check out more conversations like this in my Speaking Freely playlist. Here are three other interviews I think you might like:
How a Trans Woman Found Her Voice (and Became a Voice Actress)
Voice Feminization Surgery, Explained (with Tallulah Breslin)
How to Choose the Right Trans Voice Provider (Advice from Nora Mahon)
If Bernie's voice journey resonated with you and you're thinking about starting your own, I'd love to support you. My course Mindful Voice Feminization covers everything you need to develop a voice that feels like yours — at whatever age, stage, or starting point you're coming from.
And if you found this post meaningful, share it with someone who might need to hear it. Bernie's message deserves to travel.
Mindful Voice Feminization
Ready to explore your own voice? Sign up for my free one-hour masterclass, Change the Gender of Your Voice: No Hormones or Surgeries Required, and work with a gender-affirming voice teacher who understands your journey.
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