Kai Cheng Thom is an award-winning writer, performer, and community worker. She has published five books, including the novel Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars, the award-winning essay collection I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl’s Notes from the End of the World, and the children’s book From the Stars in the Sky to the Fish in the Sea. The New York Times praised her most recent work, the bestselling Falling Back in Love with Being Human: Letters to Lost Souls, as an “intimate expression of self-acceptance and forgiveness, tenderly written to fellow trans women and others.”
Interviewed by Robert Hickey
Robert Hickey (RH): You’ve written that those in the LGBTQ2S+ community must learn how to talk to transphobes — how have you approached this? How do you reach this audience amidst organized efforts to silence voices from marginalized communities and near-impenetrable information bubbles?
Kai Cheng Thom (KCT): My first exposure to the practice of talking to folks who held transphobic views about trans identity was my own family, who are very loving people who were also never seriously exposed to a queer or trans positive worldview.
This was a struggle, and as a result, I went into a mental health career and spent several years facilitating a program for parents whose children had recently come out as trans. I worked with over a hundred parents at this time and had the great privilege of getting to be there for the massive inner struggle that some (not all) parents can feel when their children come out.
This made me realize that at the core of transphobia, there is usually a great deal of fear, and the best way to transform that fear is to meet it with love rather than shame. I want to be clear that I do not think it is vulnerable trans people’s duty to seek out hostile audiences and put ourselves at risk all the time. Rather, I believe that as a movement it is important to develop a strategy and a narrative that makes space for complexity and compassion.
In my day to day, I work as a consultant, mediator, and dialogue facilitator and I have hosted conversations about transphobia and homophobia in various communities and organizations, which is always a deep learning experience as well.
I believe that powerful moments of dialogue can happen in totally ordinary moments, just going about one’s day and having interactions with people on the street and in our lives.
RH: In your most recent Substack post, you cite non-dual thinking and working with paradoxes as one of the most liberating and transformative experiences of your life. For people not familiar with this practice, can you briefly explain what non-dual thinking means and how it liberated you?
KCT: Non-dual thinking is a concept embedded in many spiritual philosophies, including Buddhism, Hinduism, and Daoism, among many others. It is essentially the belief that more than one thing can be true at the same time, even if those two truths appear contradictory.
This may seem abstract, but it’s really helpful in daily life when we apply it to something like emotions —for example, when I was a therapist, I often invited clients to allow themselves to feel more than one feeling at the same time. It makes sense to be really angry at someone you love while also feeling great connection and attachment to them.
Non-dual thinking can also help us make decisions when faced with moral dilemmas. People often say to me: What’s the point in trying to create a better society if the world seems to be ending anyway? It feels hopeless. Yet it also seems so important to keep trying. And the truth is both: It can be both hopeless and worthwhile, and allowing both to be true helps the world to make a little more sense.
Non-dual thinking helped me to get out of feeling like I had to be morally perfect, and if I made any mistakes, that made me evil (this is a very common belief, even though of course, no one is morally perfect). It’s such a relief!
RH: As you’ve embraced non-dual thinking, have you noticed any changes in your writing?
KCT: To be honest, I think it’s more that writing was what helped me to embrace non-dual thinking! Poetry and fiction especially are such fabulous spaces to explore multiple truths, because the form itself is about exploring the perspectives we take for granted from another angle.
RH: One of the many hats you’ve worn was advice columnist for Xtra. I was moved by your response to a correspondent who was grappling with the compromises of living under capitalism. You counseled them to “[h]old on to joy,” because “[t]hat’s what the revolution is for.”
These days, holding on to joy can feel like a struggle. How are you faring with living up to your advice? What’s bringing you joy?
KCT: My answer is non-dual! Recently, a friend asked me if I was happy, and I surprised myself by saying, “You know, I’m happy every day.” It’s true, I’m happy every day! But I’m not happy all day long.
I have joyful moments, and they are mostly about the enormous privilege I have of getting to spend so much time going deep into people’s perspectives and stories and struggles and triumphs. I love people so much, and they are also so awful sometimes. It’s both.