When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, Shelton, Bigham, and Trans* Lounge Program Supervisor Ash Nichols brainstormed to find a way to present the workshops online. Workshops were initially held at The Center’s Village at Ed Gould Plaza and were limited to 15 people per session. His class has become a mainstay of our programming and he is definitely one of our most popular instructors.” “He is truly invested in our TGI/ENBY+ community and the mission of helping our folx find their true voice. “Never have I met such a kind and passionate ally,” Bigham says. Shelton ended up presenting his first TrueVoice workshop to Trans* Lounge members in February 2018. He and Bigham immediately hit it off and started figuring out ways to proceed. “If they’re not comfortable using their own voice, then how do we hear their stories? This is how I saw that I could help make change.” “I was passionate about this and knew that trans people needed to be heard and not just seen,” Shelton says. She suggested that Shelton meet with Program Manager Gina Bigham to see if there was a need or an opportunity to create some kind of group workshop within Trans* Lounge, which serves to empower and uplift the TGI/ENBY+ (Trans, Gender Non-Conforming, Intersex & Non-Binary) community. “You have to have something to shake it up and get you thinking about your voice in a different way.”īrenna had been actively attending Trans* Lounge groups and activities for years.
“For someone going through a gender transition, it’s hard to break those habits with just using your voice the same way you’ve always used it,” he explains. Shelton immediately saw an opportunity for others to benefit from voice work which uses music to help speak to the brain in a different way than speech and unlock possibilities that aren’t entrenched in the habits of how a person has always used their voice. It didn’t feel like it was a cartoon voice or a character.” “We got into a groove and through musical technique, she started using a range of her voice that was totally unfamiliar to her and it still felt like it was coming from her.
“I thought maybe there was a crossover, something I could do that could help her by working with the language that I know, which is music.” he explains. Since he was working with singers on expanding their range and getting them to lean into the qualities that make their voice uniquely theirs, Shelton wondered if he could help Brenna by using the same technique. “She was barely able to be heard even in one-on-one conversation.”īrenna admitted to being worried that whenever she opened her mouth, whatever people heard might undo everything she’d worked so hard to present in terms of her gender identity. “I made some observations about her holding onto her voice,” Shelton recalls. Serendipitously, Brenna was meeting her friend, Ryland Shelton, for drinks not too long after that day in 2017 and he happened to work as a private vocal coach for musical performers. Since 2018, the program has helped hundreds of gender expansive people learn tools to develop their voices in ways that represent them more authentically and expressively.
#Trans folx series
While the misgendering at the grocery store was painful, it set off a chain of events that led to the launching of a series of TrueVoice vocal development program workshops offered through the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Trans* Lounge. “It was kind of a shock and it was the first time I thought to myself, ‘I’ve got to do work on it.’” “I wasn’t paying attention to my voice,” the transgender woman recalls. She was “feeling beautiful” with her long blond hair flowing and her make-up applied with great care.Īfter ringing up her purchases, the male cashier casually said to Brenna, “Thank you, sir.” Sonja Brenna will never forget the day she went to the grocery store to pick up a few items.
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