This is a transcript for a travel anxiety tips video posted to Kayley Whalen's YouTube channel, and is drawn from her experiences traveling for this blog Do you get travel anxiety? Maybe it’s related to being neurodivergent, autistic, and/or LGBTQIA+ ? I created these 5 travel anxiety tips to help you avoid anxiety, sensory overload, and autistic meltdowns/shutdowns during travel. This travel advice is based on my experiences as an autistic Latinx trans & queer person with ADHD, Bipolar and Anxiety. I’ve now spent several years as a full-time traveler interviewing trans/nonbinary and neurodivergent activists around the world. These five travel tips are based on my experiences managing my mental health during travel. Yes, at times I've experienced anxiety attacks, sensory ...
Irish Heritage, Anti-AAPI violence, and the Model Minority Myth
Today, March 17, is a day many people celebrate Irish heritage, and it’s a difficult day for me. I am of Irish patrilineal descent, and Latinx matrilineal descent, and I often have felt those two sides were at war. Both of my parents were working-class children of immigrants, but the way they experienced being immigrants was very different. While I have written on my Latinx heritage, it is much harder for me to unpack my Irish heritage story, especially because of how strongly it's tied to my father's white supremacy, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and anti-AAPI racism. Anti-AAPI Violence in Georgia I began drafting this post before the news broke of the hate-motivated murders of six Asian-American women, along with two other victims, in Georgia by a white male ...
Celebrating transgender community during COVID-19 with two Miss China’s
I spent last night with Lacey, Miss China from Miss International Queen 2020, and Yaya, Second-Runner-Up and Miss China in Miss International Queen 2019. While it was a fun night, we all were brought together because of unfortunate circumstances related to COVID-19: it was the last night of Tiffany's Show cabaret where Yaya performs. In operation since 1974, Tiffany's Show is the world's largest transgender entertainment venue, and it also hosts the Miss International Queen transgender pageant. I competed in the pageant this year as Miss USA. Tiffany's Show is now closed for at least a month because of the risks of large public gatherings and a steep decline in tourist audiences. But before it did, Lacey and I saw the show with two other friends from China, Kudos and JoJo. Afterwards ...
Why I’m competing in the Miss International Queen transgender beauty pageant
From February 24 to March 7, 2020 I will represent the U.S. transgender community at the Miss International Queen pageant in Thailand as Miss USA. As the world's most prestigious transgender pageant, now celebrating its fifteenth anniversary, the two weeks of events will build positive visibility for the global transgender community. For me, this will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience to build connections with transgender women representing twenty-five different countries. The theme of the pageant is world equality, and each contestant will present their own vision of what equal rights means to them. I have never competed in, or even seen, a pageant before. I have never modeled or walked a runway. I don’t know how I’m going to survive two weeks of non-stop photoshoots, ...
Five Decades of Thai Transgender Resilience
Thai culture has a long history of being inclusive of gender roles outside of “man” and “woman.” Yet while many tourists may gain some exposure to Thailand’s transgender community through cabaret shows or LGBTQ nightlife, one Thai transgender woman has made it her mission to provide tourists a much deeper education about her community's history. Recently, while in Bangkok, I attended a two-hour talk about her life with five other tourists as part of an AirBnB experience. A Transgender Tour Guide to 50 Years of Thai History The host of the AirBnB experience asked I keep her name and her employer's name confidential, so in this post I’ll refer to her as Jip. Jip is now a cabaret performer at one of Thailand’s most prestigious cabarets, and identifies as kathoey and transgender. ...
Celebrating Latinx Art and Activism with Laya Monarez
In honor of Latinx Heritage Month in the United States, I interviewed Laya Monarez, a Latinx, Chicana, transgender bisexual artist and activist from Washington, DC. Amongst other achievements, she spoke at the White House in 2016, has painted several public murals in DC, and has been working with DC City Council members to pass a sex work decriminalization bill. Laya has been a longtime friend, and has inspired me as a Latinx transgender woman myself. We have worked alongside each other advocating for social justice, painted together, and even skated on the same roller derby league, the DC Rollergirls. In this interview, we talked about her activism, her heritage, and her artwork — which can be found on her site LayaMonarez.com. So why do you use the term Latinx? For me using ...