by Jessica Carreras
Julien Lanway is a 33-year-old Wayne State University graduate student, studying Speech and Language Pathology. The Ferndale resident, also a former Affirmations youth staff member and communications coordinator, hopes to use her degree to work on research and speech therapy programs within the transgender community.
1) What do you enjoy about working with youth?
Youth are amazing. They are so open to new ideas, and hilarious in their different perspectives. They have really fascinating concepts about the world. I really admire them.
And, going a bit deeper, sometimes I feel a little bit of redemption when I think about being a visible adult queer in the lives of many youth.
I grew up feeling completely alone and isolated in a small town in Michigan back in the '80s. I watched MTV endlessly, because it was my only dose of genderqueer reality. Seeing performers like Prince and Joan Jett helped me understand that my gender differences were OK. I dreamed that one day I would make it on MTV, where my gender would be valued and celebrated instead of just being the impetus for a lot of scolding, groundings and ostracism. Some days I would pray that Prince and Joan Jett were my real parents, and that they were going to come rescue me from what was like a bad, bad dream in Ward and June Cleaver-land. My parents weren't terrible or anything, but my gender deviance implied some kind of failure on their part. With good intentions, they pushed femininity harder on me, but were consistently disappointed with the results of their efforts.
Inventing my own queer fairytale for my gender failures helped me get through some tough times, and helped me learn not to take on their disappointment. But having a queer adult in my life would have saved me from a lot of depression and from making a lot mistakes I made by acting out my frustrations.
2) What motivates you in your work toward your graduate degree in Speech and Language Pathology?
Helping people. It's a phenomenal feeling. For those who haven't tried it, I highly recommend it.
3) Tell me about the scholarships you recently received.
Last summer, I received the Graduate-Professional Scholarship, a tuition award for graduate students based on academic and research achievements, and this January I was selected by the faculty of the program for a special scholarship in honor of the late Joan Cortright, a former faculty member and researcher at Wayne State University. Both were quite an honor.
4) What do you hope to do after graduating?
I'm definitely geared toward working in the public school system, because I grew up in a household that put more faith in the education of children than any sort of deity or idol.
On the other hand, I am particularly excited about launching a project working with the transgender community. I've had lots of first-hand experience manipulating some cutting-edge technology that uses acoustic measurements of speech to analyze it in different ways, and I'd like to use this to help transgender folks achieve the voice and communicative presentation they've always wanted.
5) Why are you focusing your speech therapy goals on the transgender community?
As a former facilitator for the Affirmations Gender Non-Conformists group and a gender-variant individual myself, I have a great love for this community. I can't imagine anything better than to be able to work with people who have spent their lifetimes in pursuit of happiness, and to be able to play a small part in helping them get there.
To learn more about speech and language pathology, visit the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association at http://www.asha.org.
