My name is Bernie Wagenblast. I’m from Cranford, New Jersey. 

I was four years old. I recall being at my grandmother’s house, sitting in front of her vanity, putting on some necklaces of hers, and she had a powder puff and putting powder on my face.

A few years after that, I was about six years old. My best friend, who was a girl, lived across the street from me, and she had a fort in her backyard. And she and I exchanged clothing. There was not one hour of my waking life where I did not think about this at least once. 

When I was in my young teens, there was a story that was being covered a lot in the local media about an elementary music teacher in a neighboring school district who had transitioned during the summer break. I looked up her address, mailed her a letter and made arrangements for her to give me a call at a payphone one evening. It was the first trans person I had ever knowingly talked to. And just to have that acknowledgement, that conversation with an adult to me was wonderful. 

Another way that I coped was by focusing on what I wanted to do for my career. From about fifth grade on, I wanted to be on the radio, and I was very fortunate that I did have a career in what I had dreamed of as a kid. I worked on the radio in New York City, the biggest market in the country. Ended up finding myself working in the transportation field as well. 

One of the jobs I had was with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Part of that was the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the New York City subway system. And they needed a voice to make announcements.

We recorded all those, so now if you’re in the station, it will sound something like this: “The next downtown number two will arrive in two minutes. Please stand away from the platform edge.” I also am the voice on the AirTrain at Newark Liberty International Airport, as well as Patco, which runs between Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey. 

Fast forward to 2017, again, dealing with being trans. So I sought out therapists. I wanted them to give me the tools to cope with being trans because I knew that was never going to go away, but be able to cope with it without having to transition. Another one of the things that I needed to do was I sought out a support group.

I wanted them to give me the tools to cope with being trans because I knew that was never going to go away.

And one of the things that I had come across online was a new app that had come out called Face App. You could upload a photo of yourself and you would be able to see how you looked: as a young person, as an older person, but you could also change your gender. When I saw the result, it blew me away. It was a realistic, or what I felt was a realistic representation of how I might have looked had I been born female. That was the moment that something clicked on that said, I have to do more about this. 

I went to an endocrinologist and was prescribed the lowest dose possible of estrogen. That was a big part of what I was trying to do were changes that would be invisible to the rest of the world. 

I’ve always gone by the name Bernie, but it was short for my legal name, which was Bernard. In 2021, still during Covid, I had a virtual hearing with the judge and legally changed my name to Bernie. To the rest of the world, nothing had changed, but I knew now that that was short for Bernadette. 

In 2022, the support group that I was a member of, which met at a hospital in New Brunswick, New Jersey, had an annual award ceremony. When I had gone in previous years, I always went in a jacket and tie because it was a semi-formal event. 

So I reached out to an older trans friend of mine and I said to her, “Is there anything that you can suggest that might add a little feminine flair?” 

And she said, tell you what. Come down to my house early that afternoon. I will have a dress for you.” I went down to her house that afternoon, she had the dress. Another friend had donated one of her old wigs. She did my makeup, and we went to the event and the reception that I had from everyone there was magnificent. I had absolutely no problems. They were very supportive.

I described that night as my Cinderella night. At midnight, when I left my friend’s house, the magic disappeared and I had to go back to boy mode and living that life. But that was the night that I realized that I could do this, that I had to do this. 

And that was the moment, you know, a couple of months after that, that I made those social media announcements to the world to say that I was going to be transitioning. And on January 1st, 2023, I started living my life full-time as the person you see now. 

My story is getting out there to thousands of people that I will never meet, but even more meaningful to me has been comments that I’ve seen from other trans women, particularly young transgender women. And even though they’re hearing what I call the guy voice, they know that that voice is being performed by a trans woman.

And that’s a little form of affirmation: that transgender people are part of everyday life. Perhaps there’s no better example than being one of the voices of the New York City subway. My story, I understand, is unique. I don’t represent all transgender people, but I hope that my story brings some humanity to the whole discussion about transgender people.