Kris King’s Story
They/Them
Kris uses they/them pronouns
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I grew up in Catholic high school in Wisconsin, openly queer, unknowingly Autistic, chronically ill, and forced into womanhood. It was about as hellish as it sounds, and I was only spared by my parents relative financial stability and my whiteness. And while the systems around me aren’t there yet, I am. Now, I’m 22. I’m openly trans, Autistic, queer, and disabled. Equity means knowing where people come from, what they’ve been through, and figuring out how to support them. I’ve built my own equity because it wasn’t given to me.
It has not been a straightforward path, but the work I do is driven by the hope that the next kid like me doesn’t have to do what I did. I became hardened. I put my head down to work because academics could carry me away from where I was and put me ahead, and they did. I’m a rising senior at Harvard studying History of Science: Medicine and Society, and Women and Gender Studies and my work centers Trans and Autistic equity and policy.
Middle school and high school were my own personal hellscape. I was diagnosed with ADHD in 8th grade, and combined with an attempt to process my queerness (coining the term homosexual to describe myself, believing I was the first gay person ever because I didn’t know any others) and understanding the abuse in my own home, I was set on an unlucky trajectory. What does one do when home is unsafe and medication is the only thing allowing school to be palatable? Isolate, medicate, and work really, really, hard. I pulled myself from a “D” student in middle school to straight-As throughout high school. I was functional, but I was not myself.
The day I asked a girl to prom, I believe the first person in my high school’s history to do so, was the day I knew I was going to be okay. Our relationship lasted a mere five weeks, but the political statement of it lasted years. We were hearing about other couples inspired by our actions well into college.
I spent most of my senior year sick, in my cold, dark room surviving on Gatorade and mashed potatoes. I truly believed I might not survive whatever unknown thing was happening to me, and I thought my opportunities at college were gone given my lack of senior grades. I will never forget the day I got into Harvard, having been rejected by the vast majority of schools I applied to. I insisted on opening the email in my mom’s car - my safe space - in a parking lot two blocks from home. My mom and her step-mom were waiting at home when I pulled in the driveway and broke down crying that I had made it. Three bad knees among the three of us, we danced, screamed, and cried. I was the first Harvard admit from my high school ever.
The world is more forgiving than you think. We can always make new friends and find new passions. I have a tattoo on my inner right wrist - a dagaz - a Nordic rune for “day” that symbolizes light, clarity, and rebirth. On my hardest days in my youth, I always remembered that I had me and that was enough. I left almost all my family the same summer I got that tattoo. Every day you are living and breathing is an opportunity to be truer to yourself and fight for what you believe, even if that’s small. Paint your nails, research a college far from home, and ask that girl to the prom.
I founded the Harvard Trans+ Community Celebration quite frankly because we need more joy around here. If you don’t have the community you need, build it. Go find it. People will always be grateful you did. If you’re not safe enough at home or outside to do so, find someone who can and is building. When you foster spaces with so much love, nobody cares whether you’re cis or trans, disabled or able-bodied, or anything else. We all need each other.
You could take this as a sob story or an attempt for pity, but it is not meant to read that way. I want you to see me for the strength I have, the privilege I am lucky for, and the way I’ve carved an untraditional path. My childhood was lonely, but my adult life is so full. I’m not a religious person, but I thank my lucky stars every night.
