Have you ever seen a recipe for trans-affirming care? We’ve done it!
You can download the resumed recipe and share it on social media helping us promoting a more inclusive and community-centered trans-affirming care.
This placemat before you is made in patchwork, its colors drawn from the trans flag, stitched together like the many pieces of our community.
Each square represents a story. Each seam, a connection.
Together, they draw inspiration from the quilting traditions used in HIV activism: a way to remember, honor, and resist.
At the center sits a broken plate, repaired with gold. It reflects the Japanese art of mending what was broken, not to hide the fracture, but to illuminate it, declaring proudly that it, too, is part of the story.
Because being trans in this world often means learning to live with fractures, and choosing, again and again, to repair ourselves with care, with community, with brilliance.
Today, I offer you a recipe for trans-affirming care.
First: a heaping tablespoon of self-determination. Because care begins with honoring who we say we are.
Self-determination is the gold in our cracks— where we reclaim what systems tried to erase.
Next: a generous cup of respect. Respect is the difference between a provider who questions us and one who listens.
It is the seam that binds the shattered pieces of our experience into a vessel of dignity.
Without respect, there is no care—only harm.
Then: a dash of correct pronouns. Simple, but powerful. A pronoun is more than grammar, it is affirmation, survival and belonging.
It says: “You are not invisible.”
Now: a pinch of joy. Joy is what reminds us we are more than wounds to be bandaged.
Our joy is bright, unapologetic and necessary. It shines through the fractures like light through stained glass.
Then: three drops of community wisdom.
Our ancestors, Hijra, Bakla, Muxe, and Two-Spirit, have long known that healing comes not from the outside but from those within our communities who live their truth.
Their wisdom is the gold that holds us in place, generation after generation.
Finally: a sprig of accountability. We do not build equity with good intentions alone.
We build it with action, follow-through and systems that carry not only promises, but responsibility.
This is the final seal in our mending, a bond forged not just in hope, but in justice.
Together, these layers are more than just a recipe. They are a roadmap.
A blueprint for trans-affirming care that is not theoretical, but tangible, necessary and urgent!
The plate is still here. Cracked, yes, but repaired. More beautiful because of its fractures.
That is trans resilience and community care.
This exhibition is not just a metaphor. It is a call. To listen. To act. To build care as a shared responsibility, crafted with us, not for us.
Because we are not broken. We are whole.
And we own our seat at this table.
Thank you.
This work doesn’t end here!
