Joe Wong - Truth and Transformation

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Jan 29, 2018
by Ivan Capriles
Joe Wong - Truth and Transformation

Trans activist on how it is to be a trans man growing up in a conservative family

A key function of the Salzburg Global LGBT Forum is to deepen our understanding of the diversity and complexity of LGBT lives. No global conversation is easy, and it relies on the art of listening and the willingness to enter new worlds.

At the 2015 session, Joe Wong, program manager of the Asia-Pacific Transgender Network in Thailand, opened up and shared his life story during one of our annual “Truth and Transformation” panels.

Joe Wong, a trans man from Singapore, now living in Thailand, was born to a conservative family and educated at a Catholic girls’ school. He felt uncomfortable in his body when touched, and eventually used duct tape as an attempt to conceal the female parts of his body that he felt shouldn’t have been there.

One day, while in an elevator with a close relative and a stranger, the relative noticed the duct tape, humiliating Joe on the spot and demanding an explanation. “In school I was taught not to show emotions. So I let my relative yell at me, and tear away the duct tape in the elevator,” he recalls. It was hard for Joe to tell his closest relatives about his body issues.

His father supported him despite the family’s tendency to not share many personal issues. Joe remembers: “He would put a relevant article or book on my desk. There was no discussion about it but he helped. He died when I was 21 and I wondered where his tolerance came from. I later discovered that he was gay.”

When Joe decided to transition, he asked his parents to choose his post-transition name “since they gave me my first name.” His father gave him his own English name – which he took to be a sign of his father’s love and acceptance. “It is interesting to discover myself through coming out. A lot of internalized hatred disappears,” he says through a broad reassuring smile.