One of the famous voices that reverberate through New York City’s subway stations each day revealed Wednesday that she is a transgender woman.
Bernie Wagenblast publicly came out on WNYC’s “Death, Sex & Money” podcast after transitioning in December 2022 — decades after she recorded some of the city’s most iconic transportation lines.
The New Jersey native — who also voices the AirTrain at Newark Liberty International Airport and South Philadelphia’s Port Authority Transit Corporation — told host Anna Sale that she feels “disembodied” from the sound of her pre-transition voice.
“I’ve only been using this voice full-time since Jan. 1,” Wagenblast said, adding that she had used her new voice in the privacy of her home after working with a voice coach for a year and a half.
“Before that, I had been working on it, but most of my conversation was what I call my guy voice, and professionally I still use that voice, but I’m trying to use this voice more and more so that it becomes more natural, I become more comfortable with it, and hopefully I can improve upon it.”
Wagenblast, 66, continued to use her “guy voice” professionally last year, particularly when she was called to record updated announcements last year ahead of the opening of Newark Airport’s new Terminal A.
But that was for the last time, she said.
Wagenblast — who has kept her birth name — said she noticed she was different when she felt “natural” playing with her grandmother’s jewelry and makeup at 4 years old.
Two years later, she suggested that she and her female best friend switch clothes during an afternoon of playtime, a move that earned her a talk from her parents about how unacceptable it was to perform feminity.
“I don’t think there was one waking hour of my life from 6 years on that I didn’t think about being a girl at least once during that hour. That’s how pervasive it was. It was something that was always there,” Wagenblast said.
With no acceptable outlet for her true feelings, Wagenblast threw herself into her work. She practiced speaking in a traditional, deep broadcasting voice.
She landed several radio jobs throughout the New York metro area, including at WINS and WABC, mainly doing traffic reporting.
She joined the New York City Department of Transportation to help establish the city’s first transportation communications center and lent her voice to the nearly 500 subway stations across the city, which still use her original audio today.
Wagenblast is the founder and editor of the Transportation Communications Newsletter and now hosts two podcasts, for both of which she utilizes her new voice.
