Dr Clara Tuck Meng Soo calls time on practice

Clara Tuck Meng Soo may well have been an outstanding accountant. Or a brilliant veterinarian. Were it not for a high school careers counsellor, she may never have become one of Australia’s most trailblazing GPs and advocates.
 
The Malaysian-born, Canberra-based GP recently retired from general practice after a decorated 35-year career during which, as a trans woman of colour, she has become a prominent and passionate voice for marginalised communities.
 
However, while she may have stepped back from GP work, Dr Soo is keeping busy.
 
She will remain a practice principal at East Canberra General Practice, which offers gender-affirming care, and continue to sit on the ACT Government’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Oversight Board.
 
And importantly, while she plans to ‘make more time for myself’, one of Australia’s first openly trans GPs will continue advocacy work for the communities she represents.
 
‘I won’t say I won’t do anything, because there might be a really exciting and interesting opportunity that comes up where I think I can really make a contribution,’ Dr Soo told newsGP.
 
Speaking from her Canberra home, Dr Soo reflected on the sliding-door moment that set her on the path of general practice.
 
The then-17-year-old was preparing to leave Malaysia to study in England after receiving a scholarship. Part of that preparation was a visit to the school’s careers master to fill out a questionnaire on interests and career ambitions.
 
‘She looked through the paper, and said to me, “I noticed that with your choice of career, you haven’t put medicine down”,’ recalls Dr Soo.
 
‘She said to me, “Looking at the way you answer your questions, I think medicine will be quite a good career for you”.’
 
From memory, Dr Soo thinks she wrote accountancy and veterinary science. But what she clearly recalls is why she didn’t write medicine.
 
At the time, still living as a gay male teenager yet to come out, she was already challenging others’ views on how she should live her life. Even her mother’s.
 
‘Even among Chinese mothers, my mother had a reputation,’ says Dr Soo.
 
‘I hadn’t put medicine down because that’s what my mother wanted me to do, and it was my small act of rebellion.’
 
Fortunately, on reflection the young GP-to-be considered the choice more pragmatically.
 
‘I should really do what I feel is right for me,’ she eventually thought.
 
Dr Soo moved to England to study medicine at Cambridge University and then completed her clinical studies in London, graduating in 1985.
 
Where to from there became the next question, as she debated whether to stay in England or move to Australia. As a member of Malaysia’s Chinese ethnic minority, for whom institutional and social discrimination was common, returning home was the least preferred option.
 
At the end of her first visit to Australia, a taxi ride to Sydney Airport to return to the UK became the sealer.
 
‘The taxi driver said to me, “We have a policy of multiculturalism in Australia. I think it’s a really good thing”.
 
So, a taxi driver sold Dr Soo on moving to Australia?
 
‘And the sunshine,’ she said. ‘Then I ended up living in the coldest capital in Australia.’
 
After migrating to Australia in 1989, and making Canberra her home in 1993, Dr Soo became a leader in transgender health, combining her clinical skills with building practices for those all-too-often marginalised by mainstream healthcare, such as people with drug dependencies, gender-diverse patients, sex workers, refugees, ex-prisoners.
 
In 2002 she became practice principal of Interchange General Practice in Canberra. Renamed Hobart Place General Practice in 2019, and known for its work with Canberra’s most marginalised people, it closed its doors in 2023 due to what Dr Soo said were financial pressures from ‘the continuing decline in value of Medicare rebates’.
 
Dr Soo served as a board member of the Australian Professional Association for Transgender Health and, having herself transitioned in 2017, became the organisation’s first trans president.
 
She is pleased to see more young people from the LGBTQIA+ community working in the healthcare system.
 
‘There are actually quite a lot of young trans and non-binary people coming up now who are medical students, junior doctors, registrars and so on,’ she said.
 
‘I’m very, very hopeful that we will actually see a new generation of people carrying that torch and advocating for the community.’
 
Dr Soo added that GP allies are also important, given there are still GPs not aligned with gender-affirming care.
 
‘I do see younger doctors coming along, saying, “I’m interested in this, I feel that there’s a real need for good GP care for this community. I’m willing to step up and provide that”,’ she said.
 
‘There’s overwhelming evidence of positive health outcomes for transgender people, especially young people, if they can actually get access to the care, community and medical support they need.’
 
In 2024 Dr Soo was one of two recipients of the Australian Medical Association’s Diversity in Medicine Award.
 
But ironically, it is another award that Dr Soo returned that has proven the greatest gift of all.
 
In 2015, she was awarded an Order of Australia Medal (OAM) for her service as a GP to the ACT community, particularly for her work with LGBTQIA+ people and those living with HIV and drug dependencies.
 
But in January 2021, she gave back her OAM in protest when tennis champion Margaret Court, by then a vocal critic of LGBTQIA+ people, was elevated to a Companion of the Order of Australia in the same honours.
 
As it turned out, Dr Soo’s act of protest led to her own elevation – to a nationally recognised spokesperson.
 
It is a role she will continue to embrace in retirement, because she still feels she can help to make – and inspire – positive change for those still struggling.
 
‘I accept nearly all those invitations to speak, because life is still tough for anyone who chooses gender affirmation, but it’s especially tough for young people of colour, and not just transgender people, it’s gay and lesbian people of colour as well,’ she says.
 
‘If they see me, an older person of colour who’s actually been able to forge a career as a successful GP, they can maybe think, “I do have options. Things are tough now, but if I keep plugging away at it, I can get there. I can have a happy, successful, productive life”.
 
 ‘If only I had another award like the OAM to use again when the time is right.’
 
Log in below to join the conversation.

general practice advocacy GP retirement LGBTQIA+ non-binary Order of Australia transgender health