Martial artist Kelly Kimberly Cheong opens up: "Eventually, you do find a degree of peace"
The 'Ah Girls Go Army' actress opens up about the struggles she has faced in her life, saying: "There have been emotional painful moments in my life. My relationship to mental health, when I was younger, was very hard."
"Since ‘Ah Girls Go Army’ came out, the responses have been mixed — good and bad, extremes. But personally, on Instagram, I’ve been getting a lot of positive comments: A lot of fans ask me about myself, and I’m very open with them. I don’t feel like I have a lot of secrets to hide.
I didn’t really understand the hoo-hah about the 'Amanda Man' drama, before the movie came out. But I can understand the concern, because in movies, transgender people are mostly portrayed as a joke. But I knew my character wasn't like that, the reason why I was chosen for the role wasn't because it was to make fun of me, it was because of my fighting ability.
And my character is not trans. It isn't mentioned at all; normally in movies, when they want to portray a transgender person, they usually get a cis-gender person, or sometimes they get a guy to cross dress as a girl, and then they make fun of them. But in 'Ah Girls Go Army' we have a transgender person playing a biological woman. My character's gender doesn't come up in the movie at all — in the movie, I'm just a normal girl, it's just that I'm taller than everyone else. I don't want to sound boastful, but I think it's a great milestone for my community."
"There have been emotional painful moments in my life: People have called me bapok, faggot, ah gua. Growing up, I was bullied a lot, I was on the receiving end of a lot of violence. That was what drove me to study multiple martial arts. But it wasn't just because I wanted to protect myself: I just wanted to understand the notion of violence, including how to avoid it.
Some of the scars on my arms are from my three cats — when you bathe them they can really get violent. But others are self-harm scars. My relationship to mental health, when I was younger, was very hard. But these days I'm coping very well.
When I was younger, I didn't like my body at all. I went through gender dysphoria, I still go through that every day. I look in the mirror and I wonder, 'why do my shoulders look so broad? I wish my hips were wider...' These sorts of thoughts. But after a certain point, you do find a degree of peace, though it isn’t complete."
Photography Lavender Chang
Styling Gregory Woo
