Alana Dantas Barros’ doctoral thesis is more than research – it’s helping transgender people in Brazil speak their truth.
Alana is a speech therapist with a master’s in public health, currently studying for her PhD in public health at Universidade de Brasília-UnB. Her research centers on how voice and interpersonal communication can improve the lives of transgender people.
Members of the trans community often wish to change the way they sound so that their voice more closely matches their gender expression. Alana first became aware of the particular challenges transgender people face in terms of identity and speech while speaking with a friend who identifies as trans. It made complete sense to Alana that the way we communicate has a huge bearing on who we are as individuals.
Alana’s speech therapy graduate research group meets online during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Prejudice and discrimination against the transgender community is alarmingly high in Brazil – there were 130 reported killings of trans people in the country between October 2018 and September 2019. In Alana’s experience, discrimination is present within the Brazilian healthcare system as well, stemming from a lack of technical or cultural knowledge. There are few public health speech and language specialists with practice in caring for trans people. Where help is available, waiting lists are extremely long.
Alana’s research looks beyond physical and biological issues to the social dimensions around gender identity and communication. She hopes her work will help to elevate the voices of trans people in Brazil, and by bringing the discussion to more professionals, help improve the trans community’s access to speech services.
Alana graduated from the Federal University of Sergipe in 2011, and went on to get a master’s in public health from the University of Brasília in 2017. Alongside her studies, she is a student member of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health.
Alana began her PhD studies in 2018. She met her PhD co-supervisor, David Azul, a specialist in speech therapy for transgender people and gender theory, on ResearchGate. They originally connected when Alana reached out to David to read one of his publications which her university didn’t have access to. David is based in Australia, so they began sharing information via email before finally meeting in person at a seminar in Brazil.
Alana knows she would have struggled to find someone with David’s level of expertise in this niche area of speech therapy and gender in Brazil. With her original supervisor Valéria Mendonça’s expertise in public health, Alana now has a team of collaborators with complementary knowledge sets and skills to enrich her research.
