Name: Tai Tran
Year: First Year
Major: Thinking about Gender and Sexuality Studies with a minor in Chinese
Hometown: Boston, MA
PCC Affiliation: Turner House
Tai Tran: social justice activist, ramen enthusiast, and Bostonian with roots in California and her birthplace of Vietnam. Tai, whose infectious smile and sassy personality never fails to charm, sat down with Her Campus on a rainy evening in the Union to dish about her Davidson favorites, her gap year experiences, and creating community at Davidson and beyond.
On being a Scorpio: “We are known for sex. We’re very passionate. When we love something we love all of it.”
On taking a gap year: “I applied to this program called the Dudley Promise Corps, which was a brand-spankin’-new AmeriCorps program, and by brand-spankin’-new I mean it was the pilot year. … A lot of it was unstructured.… It was a lot of fun. I was assigned to a K-1 classroom for an entire year. I love my children. I think they’re six years old now. I went back to visit them over the winter and they still remember me. … It’s great getting to see them grow up. [But] I still had time to pursue other interests, such as social activism in the neighborhood that I lived in, which was highly populated with Vietnamese-Americans, so I was able to do some community organizing and get to know my neighborhood a lot more.”
On the Davidson queer community: “Visibility is something that I personally strive for at Davidson. I’m running for Q&A [Queers & Allies] Webmaster and my personal goal is to promote visibility on campus. … It’s a small pool, there’re not a lot of us. And I knew that coming in, but at the same time that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be proud and out there and visible and … show others who may still be in the closet or are questioning that we’re here, we support you, and if you ever need to learn more about the culture or your own identity, we have resources.”
On finding community at home: “I participated in a queer youth theater program [during my gap year], and it was a lot of fun because I got to be around other queer youth. I actually met my trans sister there. It’s hard meeting people like me in the world, so I was really glad that I was accepted into the program. … Every time I went in they greeted me, they said “Hi girl, how you doin’?” and they would hug me and it felt like I was coming into a community, it felt like I was coming into my own little family and I really liked just being next to them and being around them.”
On the word “slut:” “I identify as a really proud slut. I believe in sexual liberation and women owning their bodies, and you can do whatever the hell you want with your body and not be called a slut. Because men are sluts, they just don’t call it that, they call it being a man. I love being a slut so much that I got a tattoo of it on my leg. I really believe in sexual liberation, and women do what ever the hell you want, and men do whatever the hell you want, but do not throw that word around. It’s very gendered, it always comes back to being a woman. [The tattoo] is a reclamation of the word.”
On her favorite Davidson meal: “Try the tacos. I really like the international food that they have. It’s good, not great, but good.”
On immigrating to the United States from Vietnam: “[It] was really interesting because I picked up English but at the same time I dropped Vietnamese. My mom tried to keep [Vietnamese] at home but I never continued with it for one reason or another. … Eventually there was a language barrier between us. She’s been here twenty years and still doesn’t speak a lot of English, and I’ve been here twenty years and I only know very basic Vietnamese.”
On defining her identity: “From [ages] thirteen to fourteen I started to learn more about the word transgender and what it meant, because at the time I thought I was a man, because that’s what society told me, that’s what my mom always told me, but honestly looking back I never once felt like a man, and then I learned about the word trans and transgender… and I relate to it more. I started to come out as trans to my friends and coworkers. … I was very open about my trans identity.”
On coming out to her mom: “I came out to her as someone attracted to men, but I haven’t come out to her as trans yet, half because I don’t have the language… and also if you don’t know how to say something to somebody how are you even going to approach that, especially if it’s in a different language.”
On Davidson’s social scene: “I’ve been to parties, and coming to Davidson and experiencing the party life here, … it’s not as much as I’d hoped it would be. [Davidson needs] some people who know how to cut loose and just be silly. I look around and these people are just standing around talking and drinking and nobody’s really dancing. I usually prefer to go to a club.”