Dr. Kim Christensen is a trauma-informed acupuncturist in Minneapolis. She co-owns Constellation Acupuncture and Healing Arts with her business partner, Amy Kuretsky. Kim says they employ 13 people on W-2 payroll and take no insurance. She tells me how an untreated tick bite and years of illness led her to Chinese medicine. She describes a treatment room she calls a sandbox, where patients get to define themselves and set their own terms. We talk about accessibility beyond cost, and about her doctoral capstone on Chinese medicine and gender-affirming hormone therapy. Kim says yin and yang were not overtly gendered for much of the history of Chinese medicine. She put the capstone away exhausted, and now she’s thinking about bringing it back. Michael McMahon, whom I interviewed on August 25, 2026, introduced us. We also talked about a part two on Kim’s teaching. Guest: Dr. Kim Christensen, Licensed Acupuncturist, Doctor of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. Co-owner of Constellation Acupuncture and Healing Arts in Minneapolis. Master’s degree from Northwestern Health Sciences University. Pediatric Integrative Health Fellowship at the University of Minnesota Masonic Children’s Hospital. Studied at Henan University of Chinese Medicine in Zhengzhou. Doctorate from the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine in 2023. Works with the Earl E. Bakken Center for Spirituality & Healing at the University of Minnesota. Chapters * 00:00 — Meeting Kim, craniosacral work and running a clinic * 10:36 — The tick bite and the path into Chinese medicine * 18:28 — The treatment room as a sandbox * 27:32 — Yin, yang and gender in the history of Chinese medicine * 35:17 — A clinic that works for everyone: tables, food therapy, draping and mentoring * 50:04 — The capstone, and Chinese medicine as a queer practice Quotes * “I really see the treatment room in some ways as almost like a sandbox or a playground for people to express themselves.” — Kim * “Patients are the most incredible teachers and the most incredible mirrors we could possibly ask for.” — Kim * “Matter is never a settled matter.” — Karen Barad, quoted by Kim Content notes: Eating disorders and diet culture (around 43:07). The linked Hedva essay discusses suicide attempts, childhood abuse and police violence.A note on the history of yin and yang. Kim says yin and yang were not overtly gendered for much of the history of Chinese medicine. Here is how the timeline runs, as scholars tell it. The characters first appear on oracle bones more than 3,000 years ago, meaning sunlight and shade, as separate words. A text called the Zuozhuan, set in the sixth century BCE, has a physician name yin and yang among six forces that can cause disease. By the Han dynasty, yin and yang are a paired system joined with the five phases, and the pairing with male and female is explicit. The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classicwas compiled in the Han. Sources: Robin R. Wang, “Yinyang (Yin-yang),” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and a review of Donald Harper’s Early Chinese Medical Literature. Links are in the sources list below. Find Kim * Constellation Acupuncture & Healing Arts * Mentoring sessions with Kim or Amy Kuretsky * Kim says practitioners in their first year of practice get 50% off. * Earl E. Bakken Center for Spirituality & Healing, University of Minnesota Sources and further reading (in the order they come up) * Michael McMahon, interview recorded August 25, 2026. * Alaine D. Duncan and Kathy Kain, The Tao of Trauma: A Practitioner’s Guide for Integrating Five Element Theory and Trauma Treatment, North Atlantic Books (paperback released January 2019). https://northatlanticbooks.com/?p=56189 (Kim trained with Duncan) * Oregon Administrative Rule 836-053-0017, additions to essential health benefits for plan years beginning January 1, 2022. Requires up to 12 acupuncture visits per year in plans that must include essential health benefits. * Karen Barad, “On Touching—The Inhuman That Therefore I Am,” differences 23(3), 2012, pp. 206–223. The corrected version (v1.1) is open access through Diaphanes: https://www.diaphanes.com/person/karen-barad-1827. An essay on touch, quantum field theory and ethics. Kim’s line comes from it. * Charlotte Furth, A Flourishing Yin: Gender in China’s Medical History, 960–1665, University of California Press, 1999. https://www.ucpress.edu/books/a-flourishing-yin/paper. A history of fuke, medicine for women, from the Song to the end of the Ming dynasty. Kim points to its chapter on the Yellow Emperor’s body. * Smarthistory, “Who was Fu Hao?” A consort of King Wu Ding and a military leader, known from oracle bone inscriptions and from her intact tomb at Anyang, found in 1976. * Association for Size Diversity and Health, “Health at Every Size® Principles.” https://asdah.org/health-at-every-size-haes-approach/. The organization’s description of its framework as an alternative to weight-centered care. * Catherine J. Lumenello, Gender and Sexuality in Chinese Medicine, Singing Dragon, 2019. https://us.singingdragon.com/products/gender-and-sexuality-in-chinese-medicine. A handbook for students and practitioners on gender, physiology, relationships and sexual attraction. Lumenello was Kim’s capstone mentor. * Nigel Ching, “Chinese Medicine is Queer,” The Lantern (year and issue not shown in the file). https://ching.dk/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Is-Chinese-medicine-queer-The-Lantern.pdf. Argues Chinese medicine sits in a “queer” position, outside the norm, relative to Western medicine. Kim quoted Ching’s 2016 talk at the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Kongress in Rothenburg, Germany, in her capstone introduction. * Johanna Hedva, “Sick Woman Theory,” first published in Mask Magazine, January 2016. https://topicalcream.org/features/sick-woman-theory/. * Johanna Hedva, How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom, Hillman Grad Books (Zando), September 2024. * Robin R. Wang, “Yinyang (Yin-yang),” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://iep.utm.edu/yinyang/ * Review of Donald Harper, Early Chinese Medical Literature: The Mawangdui Medical Manuscripts. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/4620 Also recommended by Kim (not discussed in the episode) * Howard Chiang, After Eunuchs: Science, Medicine, and the Transformation of Sex in Modern China, Columbia University Press (2018, confirm). https://cup.columbia.edu/book/after-eunuchs/9780231185783/. * Yi-Li Wu, Reproducing Women: Medicine, Metaphor, and Childbirth in Late Imperial China, University of California Press, 2010. https://www.ucpress.edu/books/reproducing-women/hardcover * Sophie Strand, The Body Is a Doorway: A Memoir, Running Press, March 4, 2025. https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/sophie-strand/the-body-is-a-doorway-a-memoir/9780762487417/?lens=running-press. A memoir of chronic illness, ecology and the stories we tell about the body. Kim often recommends it to patients. 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