Ivan Hsiao’s Journey to Transforming Trans Health

How would you describe your experience as a student member of the i-lab?

Gaining access to the entrepreneurial ecosystem through the Harvard Innovation Labs was one of the major reasons I picked Harvard over other schools. I knew there were few other universities where I could get a world-class education in health equity in my academic program as well as programming about how to make sustainable change in the real world at a place like the i-lab. I’m happy to say that I made the right decision: I deepened my understanding of the healthcare system and characterized the issue of trans health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, while leveraging the community, advisors, experts, and programming at the i-lab to design a viable solution. Together, this helped me feel confident that I can put the privilege of a Harvard education to good use in the real world for the trans community.

"Gaining access to the entrepreneurial ecosystem through the Harvard Innovation Labs was one of the major reasons I picked Harvard over other schools."

What was it like being in the President’s Innovation Challenge?

Being named one of the 2024 President’s Innovation Challenge finalists was surreal. I had watched previous awards ceremonies online and was in awe of the community of founders that the i-lab attracted, as well as the support system that the i-lab could offer entrepreneurs. It’s been an honor to meet many respected, successful founders at the i-lab, many of whom have raised the bar for me on the type of founder I want to become.

I was also grateful to have the Harvard platform and i-lab funding opportunities to advance Trans Health HQ, having received a Spark Grant this spring and been named a finalist for the Social Impact Fellowship Fund last fall.

Who is an LGBTQIA+ visionary that has inspired you and why?

There are too many to name! I’ll pick two transgender individuals who changed the way that I thought about gender, health, and entrepreneurship.

Schuyler Bailar may be the first possibility model I encountered online – he is someone that helped me envision a new world for myself, and then for others. Schuyler is an accomplished athlete (a NCAA D1 swimmer), scholar (I had the pleasure of meeting Schuyler in-person at the National Trans Health Summit in San Francisco last May), and activist whose work focuses on gender and human rights, and Schuyler himself is a transgender man. I was always fascinated by his accessible, scrupulously-cited educational content on gender and health which gave me the springboard for further reading on health equity insights I could pull through professionally in my management consulting work – not only on my core life sciences-based projects, but also on a broader strategic level in my role as the global head of DEI and LGBTQ Employee Resource Group at the firm. Schuyler’s posts around gender exploration and affirmation became personally informative, and helped me introspect what gender meant for me and connect the dots. Schuyler taught me that being a transgender person addressing transgender issues is not enough – we still need to elevate the voices of other transgender people doing this work, too, because our experiences and needs are not homogeneous either among the community.

In terms of entrepreneurs, Dr. Jerrica Kirkley – one of the doctors who founded Plume – is an endless source of inspiration. She speaks eloquently about social justice and medicine, has deep subject matter expertise in the healthcare field as a doctor – I remember reading about how she built LGBT+ health educational curriculum for other doctors as a resident! – and works in a way that is informed by her own experiences navigating the healthcare system as a transgender woman. To be able to understand the pain points of our healthcare system in general, and then for the transgender community, and take advantage of the tailwinds of telemedicine to build an app-based trans health clinic with a majority trans team, is extremely impressive.

My frustrations with the healthcare system didn’t start when I transitioned; having moved through the world for almost three decades as a woman, I have a deep cerebral and emotional understanding of the structural flaws of our healthcare system, designed without considering not only the needs of cisgender women, but also of course any gender minorities (and this isn’t even beginning to touch on the impact of intersecting experiences (e.g., having a disability, belonging to a racialized minority).

To see people like Schuyler and Dr. Kirkley reshaping our world through research, education, and entrepreneurship gives me hope for a brighter future with a more inclusive healthcare system.

“For me, having the privilege to be out also means I have a responsibility to move our world forward however I can, towards a place where we won’t have to come out anymore.”

What are the challenges and opportunities LGBTQIA+ entrepreneurs face today?

I have such deep respect and admiration for those before me, who paved the way for me to be out, even in this industry, and for the younger generation who fiercely embrace the full breadth of humanity in all its beautiful identities and expressions and loudly demand a more inclusive, just world for all. Like my queer and trans ancestors, I see an opportunity to remain critical and hopeful as we vision a new world for our community and design a path to get there. I know there are many opportunities to continue to care for each other in the entrepreneurship ecosystem, in what can feel like a bleak and tumultuous time with 500+ anti-LGBT bills in the US, all of which harm our community. For me, having the privilege to be out also means I have a responsibility to move our world forward however I can, towards a place where we won’t have to come out anymore. Through every challenge in history, we have had the capacity to persist and thrive, and to both draw support from and nurture our community to affect change in the world.

What’s next for you and Trans Health HQ?

I really look forward to building an all-trans founding team for Trans Health HQ and meeting other queer people and allies who are passionate about supporting our work. I was talking to an investor the other day who also came out just a handful of years ago, and we both talked about how being queer wasn’t even an option we knew about when we were younger. To know who we are and choose to be ourselves – that is already an act of resistance and an opportunity to show the world that we have always been here, and that we’re ready to fight for a better world for our queer and trans kin through innovation and thoughtful leadership.