Kai Cheng Thom

Kai Cheng Thom is a Chinese-Canadian writer, performance artist, mental health community worker, youth counsellor, and former social worker. Thom, a non-binary transgender woman, has published five books, including the novel Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl's Confabulous Memoir (2016), the poetry collection a place called No Homeland (2017), a children's book, From the Stars in The Sky to the Fish in the Sea (2017), I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl's Notes from the End of the World (2019), a book of essays centered on transformative justice, and Falling Back in Love With Being Human: Letters to Lost Souls (2023).

She won the 2017 Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ2S+ Emerging Writers and was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Prize both in 2016 for Transgender Fiction and in 2017 for Transgender Poetry. In 2019, actress Emma Watson chose Fierce Femmes as the March/April pick for the international feminist book club, Our Shared Shelf. In April 2024, her most recent book Falling Back in Love With Being Human was nominated for Pat Lowther Memorial Award.

Most recently, Kai Cheng added “advice columnist” to her repertoire with her new column for Xtra, “Ask Kai: Advice for the Apocalypse”. Kai Cheng Thom lives in Toronto.