Kai Cheng Tom: Pursuing Happiness as a Trans Woman of Color
Selected Excerpts
“When you are a young trans girl of color, you grow up knowing that you are marked for violence and death. Your classmates make jokes about hunting down and shooting people like you. It seems like almost every news item, book, movie, and TV show featuring a trans person ends with that person being rejected by their family, sexually assaulted, dying, or all three. Even the sympathetic portrayals seem to make us out to be victims to be pitied rather than heroes to root for.
No one teaches you that you can be happy. No one shows you a vision of the future that you can see yourself in.”
“More than ever, trans women of color need be able to dream about ourselves as vibrant and powerful. As leading lives worth living.
For most of my life, I didn’t know any trans people. The only trans folks I saw in the media were white and lived in worlds vastly different from my own existence as a Chinese kid growing up in an immigrant neighborhood in Vancouver. I looked to the future and saw only fear, isolation, hardship.”
“I thought that my salvation lay in making myself as non-trans as possible. I was a trans woman, but I did not want to be one of “those” trans women, as the media portrayed them: pitiful, ridiculous, unattractive creatures at the mercy of an unrelenting world.
Little by little, I came to one of the most important and powerful realizations of my entire life: Trans women’s happiness lies in loving other trans women.”
Discussion Questions
Kai Cheng Thom’s piece is about the radical joy she experiences as a trans woman of color. What stood out to you in this piece? How did it make you feel?
Kai writes about the concept of gender euphoria. How can we cultivate gender euphoria in medicine, both within the medical community and in clinical interactions?
Reflections from #MedHumChat
“Sharing her parents feared for her safety resonated w/ me; I recall having similar conversations w/ my family coming out in the late 90s. Their fear of AIDS; of me losing my job as school teacher; fear for me of violence - #MatthewShepard was wake up call for many”—@pdherron
“As a queer Asian, what resonated with me was this bit: "As he drove me home from the hospital, my father told me that “all of this” — my mental health, my gender identity — had to be kept a secret from our neighbors... he was worried about “reputation.”—@leannkmho
“Call people what they want to be called. Normalize sharing pronouns. Ask about pronouns and use the pronouns our colleagues & patients use. When we mess up, apologize and try again.”—@ShannonOMac
”our system is so focused on pathology. Moving to reality is needed. How society/culture respond to our gender requires reworking of how we address gender in health care. We need a new model of gender care. Kai’s experience highlights this.”—@cjstreed
About this #MedHumChat
“Pursuing Happiness as a Trans Woman of Color” was paired with “On PrEP or On Prayer” by Sam Sax for a #MedHumChat discussion June 26, 2019 exploring LGBTQ+ Pride.
We were honored to be joined by special guests Leanne Ho (@leannekmho) and Dr. Patrick Herron, D.Be. (@pdherron) for this #MedHumChat. Leanne Ho is a queer and non-binary activist, intern at the Medical Student Pride Alliance, and is currently finishing a BA in English Literature and Biology with the aim of pursuing medicine. Dr. Herron is an Associate Professor of Family & Social Medicine and of Epidemiology, director of bioethics education, and chair of the LGBTQIA health curriculum at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
The pieces for this chat, along with the discussion questions, were selected by Colleen Farrell.
About the Author
Kai Cheng Tom is a Canadian writer, poet, performer, and cultural worker who was trained as a clinical social worker and therapist. Kai Cheng has written about transformative justice, trauma-informed activism, and building queer and trans futures, with a focus of their work being to strengthen leftist and liberatory movements by addressing ways that trauma and oppression prevent people from build strong loving relationships. You can learn more about them here.