American transgender rights activist
Tamara Ching is an American trans woman and San Francisco Bay Area transgender activist. Also known as the "God Mother of Polk [Street]", she is an advocate for trans, HIV, and sex work-related causes.
Early life and education.
Ching was born in 1949 and grew up in the Tenderloin district in San Francisco, California. She is multi-racial and has German, Hawaiian, and Chinese ancestry. Throughout her teen years, she became a sex worker as a way of survival. Ching was empowered to address the contemporary issues related to her experience as a sex worker. Suffering with diabetes and hepatitis C, she continues to do work within the transgender and sex worker community since the 1960s and strives to create a space for young trans people.
Personal life.
Ching lives in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, where she has lived since 1992.