Real Live Trans Adults is an interview series featuring young transgender adults who reflect on their youth and offer words of encouragement to transgender children, teenagers, and young adults. Real Live Trans Adults is inspired by the Twitter hashtag #RealLiveTransAdult coined by comedian, writer, and activist Red Durkin, which was used to send messages of hope to transgender youth.
Kat Haché is an Internet goddess. She writes for Bustle and The Daily Dot, as well as her own blog. She’s also an avid tweeter and an aspiring stand-up comic living in Johnson City, Tennessee. Kat always finds a way to bring her powerful voice to the most important stories on transgender issues.
When Time passed over Laverne Cox for their list of the 100 most influential people of 2014, she called out “society’s failure to acknowledge the accomplishments and efforts of transgender women” on The Daily Dot. And when transgender teenager Leelah Alcorn took her own life in December 2014, Kat wrote this powerful plea on Bustle addressed to transgender youth: “There are people that will love you and accept you as you are. I am living proof.” Kat writes about her own transition, too, with a beautiful honesty. In my favorite blog post of hers, she writes about the process of choosing her name during transition: “Katharine was my real name—I just had to discover it.”
In this second installment of Real Live Trans Adults, I asked Kat to share some of her own advice for trans youth along with her thoughts on stand-up comedy.
Kat Hache: It sucked, but I think that’s more or less the case everywhere. That said, it’s a lot better now than it used to be and I’ve been somewhat privileged in theease I’ve had transitioning. Legally, we have a long way to go, but socially, I think people are only becoming more and more accepting, especially of younger people.
Tell me about a person who has supported you. How have they helped you?
I have such a long list of people that I am grateful for, not only for supporting me through transition, but through unstable housing situations, unemployment, and unhealthy relationships as well. I get a lot of credit for being strong, but my family and friends give me strength by loving me as I am.
“I get a lot of credit for being strong, but my family and friends give me strength by loving me as I am.”
Imagine you can go back in time and give your younger self a message from the future. What would you say?
I don’t know if I’d believe it, but I’d probably tell myself that I will one day be making a difference and that I’ll do it while being authentic to myself. Life is so different now than before transition in ways I never could have imagined. Most of them good.
You do stand-up comedy now, which I love. How does humor help you navigate the world?
Stand-up helped me learn that I could be whoever I wanted to be—including a funny, entertaining, outgoing person. Humor is how I cope with a lot of the stuff that stresses me out and, when used subversively, it’s also pretty powerful for undermining a lot of oppressive ideas in society by exposing them as ridiculous.
I have a lot of them. “When did you know?” gets old, especially because I can’t think of one clear, crystallizing moment when I knew. I think I always knew that something wasn’t right, but I grew up in a time when I had no tools to articulate it and no one to look to as an example.
“If transition feels right and you think that’ll help you towards that goal, do it. It won’t magically change your life, but it can lift the barriers toward self-actualization.”
“If transition feels right and you think that’ll help you towards that goal, do it. It won’t magically change your life, but it can lift the barriers toward self-actualization.”When life has been difficult for you, what’s one thought that has kept you going?
I remember where I was before transition and think about how far I’ve come. Knowing that my visibility helps people inspires me to keep going.
Happy, self-actualized, and living free from stigma, I hope.
What’s one piece of advice that you would give to trans youth growing up today?
The thing that has changed my life and that has made me happier has been confidence and learning to love myself. If transition feels right and you think that’ll help you towards that goal, do it. It won’t magically change your life, but it can lift the barriers toward self-actualization.
I know your parents have been fairly supportive of your transition. What’s one piece of advice you’d have for parents of trans youth?
Believe your kids and do your job and let them figure out who they are. I’m sure every parent has had to do that themselves and they probably still are. Self-actualization is a universal human experience and being transgender is just one part of that. I guarantee that you will have a better relationship with your child and that your child will be happier if you give them the latitude to embark on their own journey.
Samantha Allen writes about gender, sexuality, and technology. Read more about Samantha here. You can find Samantha on Twitter: @SLAwrites.
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