Portland State Magazine Winter 2019

6 FOR PEOPLE who are transgender or gender diverse having a voice that doesn’t match their identity can be a daily source of distress. Portland State’s Oregon Scottish Rite Speech and Language Clinic hopes to alleviate some of the hurt through its new Gender Communication Lab. The free clinic helps people who identify as transgender or gender non-conforming, meaning they don’t always identify as the sex they were assigned at birth, change their voice without harming their vocal cords, says Jeff Conn, clinic director. This is achieved through breathing, articulation, pitch and other techniques in group and individual sessions. “Their voice can feel like a betrayal,” says Conn. “We want to help.” Giving everyone a voice IN OCTOBER , a group of veterans moved into their brand- new sleeping pods in a transitional village for houseless veterans in Clackamas County—a project that came about through the contributions of students and faculty in the School of Architecture and Center for Public Interest Design. The village’s 15 tiny dwellings were constructed from several hundred wooden trusses, last seen as the primary building material for the Treeline Stage at 2017’s Pickathon music festival, which was designed and built by architecture students. Students and faculty provided research into veterans’ housing needs, collaborated on the site design, contributed to pod design and construction, and helped with landscaping the new community. Sleeping pods for veterans PARK BLOCKS