Meet Mely Quiroz | M.S., APCC Gender Affirming Therapist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Mely Quiroz and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Mely, what’s something about your industry that outsiders are probably unaware of?
One thing about being a therapist is that we are professionals in the process not the content. For me, my efficacy as a therapist relies on my commitment to my own healing and liberation. Working on myself and tending to my wounds around trust, shame, fear, and abandonment has been critical for me to be able to show up as a grounded and present version of myself when I am holding space for my clients process.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
My family is from the state of Guerrero, Mexico, Specifically a small fishermens town on the pacific called Zihutanejo. My mother and father along with my two older brothers migrated north and settled on Kumeyaay land, a specific place now known as City Heights San Diego. They migrated to the U.S. like many migrant families in pursuit of a life with opportunity. I was born and raised in the immigrant/refugee community of City Heights, San Diego. Growing up in City Heights in the 90’s and early 2000’s was challenging, Violence plagued my community, from drug and alcohol abuse, alongside domestic and interpersonal abuse, as well as police violence and border patrol violence

Being from a mixed status family had me living in fear of my family being taken away from me

In June 2006, that fear became a reality, when my oldest brother Uli was deported and later in 2008, my father was deported. Family separation is incredibly traumatic and has ripple effects of harm on all family members

Although my fears became a reality, I knew I had the privilege to change the trajectory of my life and I did so, in hopes of reunifying my family one day. I knew education was going to be my way out like the saying, “knowledge is power.”

In 2010, I began my undergraduate studies at UC San Diego. During the 5 years it took me to complete my degree, I faced a series of mental health challenges along with academic barriers that landed me on academic probation and I was close to getting kicked out of school. It was at UCSD where I first met with a therapist. She was a queer black womxn and I am forever grateful for the space she provided me with and validation she gave me. I was chronically depressed and was experiencing emotional dysregulation that made it difficult to make it to class and tend to my many responsibilities as a working college student.

I graduated UCSD in 2015 and began working for a non profit in the South Bay of San Diego. I had been at the non-profit working with first generation college bound youth when I received the life changing news. On March 28, 2017 I received a phone call from my brother that our oldest brother, Ulises had been murdered in Zihuatanejo, Guerrero.

The rest of 2017 was a blur as I fell into the deepest and darkest place I had ever been in. That year, I died too. I knew I was going to have to rebuild who I am and took what I knew would help me move through this pain. I applied to the Community Based Block (CBB) program at San Diego State University. This program is a Masters in Multicultural Social Justice Community Counseling and is an experiential program, meaning a lot of the learning you are doing is through democratic process of live processing and deliberation. I knew this program had a reputation for giving its students the tools to be leaders and change agents in their community and the work you do in the program is on yourself.

In the fall of 2018, I began my graduate program and was openly out as genderqueer. In the two years of graduate school I learned the importance of transgender healthcare and how I was experience emotional dysregulation that was linked to my depression around gender dysphoria. I learned how antidepressants and hormone therapy could help me and began treatment. I share this to capture how I came home to myself in order to heal and be able to provide guidance in the process of others towards their own healing and coming home to their authentic self.

Through my healing process I have learned that my existence as a trans brown therapist, activist and organizer, IS resistance, healing myself will benefit the generations that come after me. I want people to know that shame kills. Silence kills. I want people to know that although we might feel as though we will never see or experience better days, that this feeling is only temporary and we are worthy of living a life with joy, love, connection, and peace.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I would take my best friend to the motherland, Zihuatanejo, Guerrero. I would plan each day with a start at the cafes I like to frequent when I’m back home. Have a morning coffee and breakfast, then take a walk to the beach and lay out and play in the water. I would get on some jet skis and give her a tour of the bay. We would eat sea food for lunch because that is what they serve at the restaurants on the beach. We would order ceviche, coconut shrimp, guacamole and totopos, and an ice cold corona or pina colada. I would take her hiking and show her the new trail that has a view of the sea at the top. I would then take her to my favorite place to have drinks and tapas style food, La Tasca. The following days I would love to take her all over the new bike paths in town. If she was open to it, I would invite her to drop off flowers at my brothers grave and pay him a visit. Being in Zihua and sharing that paradise with friends always takes me back to when my brother would show me around and take me exploring with him. I learned from the best <3

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I would like to shout out all my trans and nonbinary homies, friends, colleagues, trail blazers in the community here in San Diego. I made a commitment to myself this year and that was to center the relationships that uplift me and that allow me to show up authentically as myself. Spaces and people that have supported me are Trans and Non-binary Tuesdays by the Transgender Wellness Center, Miss Naya Marie Velazco, my clinical supervisor Darlene Tando, my mentors who have encouraged me to keep sharing my story. There are too many people to name, but know that from the bottom of my heart, I thank you for being in my corner and believing in me.

Website: https://www.darlenetando.com/clinicians/mely-quiroz-apcc/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mely-quiroz-7268767a/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mely.quiroz.7