Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jamee Pineda. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Jamee, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’re complete cheeseballs and so we love asking folks to share the most heartwarming moment from their career – do you have a touching moment you can share with us?

I’m not someone who sugar coats things or always tries to look on the bright side. I can be cynical and pessimistic, too. When I step into the treatment room with someone, it is a different situation entirely. Healing work is inherently optimistic. We have the potential to re-write reality.

So much of the world right now is hostile to trans, nonbinary, and gender expansive people. It is easy to forget that it is not the entirety of our experiences. I regularly host virtual qi gong courses for QTBIPGM*. It is a chance for us to have safer spaces to tend to our wellness together. Last week I had someone in my class with a lot of stress and back pain. After doing the qi gong movements and self massage, he could breathe more easily and his pain had dissipated significantly. He almost burst into tears from relief. I didn’t heal him, I wasn’t even in the room with him. It was his intention, his body, and his qi that shifted his reality and brought about a small miracle. Despite the very real violence happening against my communities, we find and/or create places of respite, regeneration, and joy.

I think about how much transformation our bodies house even if we are just doing “nothing”. With each breath we are exchanging oxygen and carbon dioxide. Our hearts beat without us having to think about it. Our GI systems are extracting nutrients and energy from our food. Our cells are constantly regenerating. All these tiny miracles are happening inside of us whether or not we are aware of them. That potential for change, even at a cellular level, gives me hope that more collective miracles are possible or perhaps even happening right now.

*Queer and Trans Black, Indigenous, People of the Global Majority.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My work is very much informed by my lived experience as a queer, trans, autistic/ADHD, Tagalog person in the U.S. I care very deeply about centering QTBIPGM in my healing work. I am part of a community that is resilient, creative, bold, loving, and fierce and that is reflected in me as an individual, too.

Like many people who do healing work, I came into it as a patient. I was completely burned out working a poorly paid nonprofit job, multiple side jobs, and volunteer commitments. I wanted so badly to do work that aligned with my heart, in this case queer and trans social justice work. At the time I could not see how I was replicating violence on myself by having poor work boundaries and staying in toxic work environments. Community acupuncture was one of the only accessible holistic medicines available to me and it changed my life. Healing shifts our reality in material and non-material ways. I entered intensive therapy around the same time as well, left my jobs, moved out of the country, and completely reset my life. After a year I returned reoriented to doing healing work on myself and making it available to my communities.

I offer several modalities from my ancestral lineages in the Philippines and China. These include hilot, acupuncture, bodywork, qi gong, and Chinese herbs. For those in the Baltimore area I offer one-on-one sessions in-person. I also offer telehealth services for residents of Maryland, virtual qi gong classes, and virtual hilot sessions. Members of my Patreon receive exclusive educational content. I also host and produce The Decolonizing Medicine Podcast.

For Chinese medicine, I am a general practitioner and work with a wide range of conditions. Some of the most common initial complaints are pain, anxiety, depression, and digestion. People are surprised when they realize I can also treat things like acne, eczema, psoriasis, PMS, menstrual cramps, yeast infections, the list goes on. I love supporting folks seeking gender affirming care. For hilot, people are usually seeking some guidance on deepening ancestral connections or major life decisions.

We are all complex beings. My understanding of holistic medicine is that it is much more than a mind/body connection. As a hilot binabaylan I consider the causes of disease to include the social, financial, environmental, emotional, physical, and spiritual aspects of our lives. I cannot look at someone’s physical symptoms without looking at the bigger context in which they exist. For example, structural racism, transphobia, and colonization impact health on many levels. If someone comes in with back pain, is there a misalignment in the spine, is that trauma and stress stored in the muscles, or perhaps poor workstation ergonomics? Context and lived experience matters. When I work with someone we are collaborating our expertise. I am meeting them where they are on their journey.

I am most proud of offering healing services that center the needs of QTBIPGM. Ancestral connection, bodily autonomy, and quality of life are all important aspects of my work. I do my best to meet people where they are at and build treatment plans with patients that are actually accessible. I really value informed consent and education so I always invite folks to schedule a free 20 minute consult so they can ask questions and see if we are a good fit.

If you could go back, would you choose the same profession, specialty, etc.?

I would choose the same profession because healing work is my silbi, my calling. However, I definitely would do things a little differently if I had to do it over. Running one’s on own practice is hard. Straight out of grad school my brain was already fried and it was difficult to handle the steep learning curve of starting a business. I have had the privilege of working with brilliant mentors, like Joy Tabernacle KMT, Clarinda Tusitala, and Yarrow Magdalena, that radically changed my way of thinking. Had I met them sooner I would have had an easier time.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Being very upfront about who I am and what my values are has been very important in connecting with my communities. My business is VERY QUEER from the content on my website to who I collaborate with on projects. I am open about my experiences as a queer, trans, Tagalog person. I have been warned by more experienced colleagues and mentors that this choice would make me too niche and turn-off potential patients. So what? I am more interested in sending out a beacon to the folks that are aligned with me so they know I am here for them.

I have had my own struggles accessing affirming and skilled practitioners that will treat me as a whole person. Unless there is explicit signaling or community vetting, it is hard to know who is safe to go to. I can relate to searching for someone who is able to understand my experiences around race, gender, and neurodiversity. That lived experience informs my work because how can it not? Clinical knowledge on its own does not take into account the full context of someone’s life which is what holistic medicine should do.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.jamee-pineda-lac.com
• Instagram: @jameepinedahealingarts
• Facebook: @jameepinedahealingartspage
• Youtube: @jameepinedahealingarts
• Other: https://www.patreon.com/JameePinedaHealingArts, https://open.spotify.com/show/6dTvGlwkri4s8KvLx5ZNVo?si=a424bb912ad14fa5

Image Credits
Jati Lindsay