Syd Yang

they/them

Interdisciplinary ProviderSpiritual Care PractitionerRecovery CoachConsultantOrganizerCommunity Educator

Credentials: Master of Divinity; Certified Coach; Trained in Buddhist Psychology and Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy (SIP); Reiki Master Teacher

Contact

About

Rev. Syd Yang (they/them) is a spiritual counselor, interfaith / Buddhist chaplain, educator and writer. They are a mixed race/Taiwanese American, queer and trans care worker who engages decolonial possibilities for shared liberation through their practice, Blue Jaguar Healing Arts. Syd works primarily with queer and trans individuals of color, as well as regularly facilitates community based practice spaces for wellbeing + healing justice, with a specific focus on grief, sexuality + spirituality, body liberation and recovery.

Services offered

Services

Individual supportSupport groupsOrganizational consulting

Available for

Speaking engagementsKeynote presentationsWorkshops

Speaking topics, trainings & workshops

Food + Body Liberation; Eating Disorders, Menopause and more!; Decolonial approaches in Spiritual Care; Holistic care from a bio-psycho-social-spiritual framework; Mindfulness and Body Autonomy; Befriending the body; Spiritual care for Mental Health

Focus areas & populations

Focus areas

Eating Disorders — restrictiveEating Disorders — purgingEating Disorders — binge eatingEating Disorders — generalSubstance useAlcohol useTraumaChronic IllnessGriefReligious traumaEnd-of-life carePeople in active substance useCare providers, therapists and social workers

Communities served

Mental healthCommunity careAdults (18–64)Elders (65+)LGBTQIA+ communitiesBIPOC communitiesDisabled communitiesSurvivors of violenceNeurodivergent communities

Identity & values

Values & commitments

Decolonial approachesAbolitionist approachesSpiritual care

Identities & communities

Mixed race/Taiwanese AmericanQueerTransLived experience in recovery

Lived experience

Eating disordersSubstance useReligious traumaSelf-harmCPTSD

Practice & approach

Spiritual counselingEnergy workTraditional/ancestral medicine

What harm reduction means in practice

HR, in my practice, means meeting people where they are at, without judgement while centering each person's bodily autonomy. It also involves each person having a say in the ways care is received and offered.

Communities, movements & lineages that shaped this work

Street medic and sex work care practices; substance use HR approaches; liberatory spiritual care; Buddhism.

Publications, media & written work

Podcast: Dharma of Loneliness (dharmaofloneliness.com) Chapter, in Emergent Dharma: Asian American Feminist Buddhists on Practice, Identity, and Resistance (2025) Co-author, Bloody Transitions: A Menopausal Anthology of Queer, Trans and Gender Expansive Asian, Black and Latine Voices (Nov 2026) Chapter, in Bloody Hell: Adventures in Menopause from Around the World (2025) Chapter, in Q+A: Voices from Queer Asian America (2021)