Tag: lgbtq+

In honor of Pride Month, we at AIMC have been reflecting on ways that acupuncture and East Asian Medicine (EAM) can support our LGBTQ+ community, particularly with medical challenges that are specific to their identities and experiences.

Today we’re highlighting some ways that acupuncture, EAM, and herbal medicine can support gender-affirming surgeries and post-operative healing. There is increasing demand for gender-affirming surgeries each year, and surgeries have become more accessible thanks to professional associations, healthcare providers, and advocacy groups. These gender-affirming surgeries support transgender and gender expansive folks’ ability to feel that their bodies represent their true identities, and significantly reduces mental health challenges and psychological distress. According to a recent study published in JAMA Surgery, there was “42% reduction in the odds of …

“Every person who comes to a queer self-understanding knows in one way or another that her stigmatization is intricated with gender, with the family, with notions of individual freedom, the state, public speech, consumption and desire, nature and culture, maturation, reproductive politics, racial and national fantasy, class identity, truth and trust, censorship, intimate life and social display, terror and violence, health care, and deep cultural norms about the bearing of the body.[…]Queers do a kind of practical social reflection just in finding ways of being queer.”
-Michael Warner, Fear of a Queer Planet

East Asian Medicine as a liberation practice?

Acupuncturists are always fundamentally focused on the free flow of energy in the body– the “Qi”. You may have heard your acupuncturist talk about “Qi stagnation” as …