This Is What It's Like To Travel As A Gay Asian Man

Contents:

• BRETMAN ROCK ON MANIFTG HIS GAY, ASIAN, IMMIGRANT SUCCS
• GAY, ASIAN, IMMIGRANT
• FDG MY VOICE AS A GAY ASIAN IMMIGRANT FILMMAKER – AND GIVG VOICE TO OTHERS
• UNVERG AN INVISIBLE POPULATN: SOUTH ASIAN GAY MEN
• THIS IS WHAT IT'S LIKE TO TRAVEL AS A GAY ASIAN MAN

BRETMAN ROCK ON MANIFTG HIS GAY, ASIAN, IMMIGRANT SUCCS

The first time I saw Kty Tsui—and really, anybody like her—was the fall of my sophomore year.

Ta Takemoto scrib the stggle of piecg together the story of Jiro Onuma, a gay Japane man terned at ncentratn mp Topaz durg World War II. In “Poem Noisy Mouthfuls, ” Chen Chen wr his mother’s reactn when she found out he was gay: “This would never have happened if we hadn’t e to this untry.

In the first issue of Anamika (1987), a newsletter ma by queer South Asian women (self scribed as khh, which means happy or gay Hdi and Urdu), the edor wr, “We refe to ntue to be validated as a ‘Wtern’ phenomenon.

GAY, ASIAN, IMMIGRANT

” In Encyclopedia of Homosexualy (1990), Sng-huat Chua wr “While Asian tradnalists may tolerate stanc of homosexualy if discreet and surrept, an open avowal of gayns is often nmned as a Wtern rptn. I hadn’t e out to her, but I spect she’d read my journals and ma a valiant effort to nip my velopg homosexualy the bud.

I wonr if nfed her, my sire to appear mascule, my feelg out of place school when I’d always thrived that environment as a younger child…if she had ever met an openly gay Asian before?

FDG MY VOICE AS A GAY ASIAN IMMIGRANT FILMMAKER – AND GIVG VOICE TO OTHERS

I was once told by a (whe) gay iend that I passed as straight, but realy, seemed to them that I simply had no sexualy. The Stonewall Inn rts agast police harassment are often ced as the begng of the gay liberatn movement, but Tamara Chg was already on three years earlier 1966.

Durg the 1970s and 80s, Asian queers found or found groups and gathergs like Unbound Feet, Asian Lbians of the East Coast, Asian Pacific Lbians and Gays, and Gay Asian Pacific Support Network, jt to name a few. Andrew Ahn’s father once told him that there were “no gay people Korea.

UNVERG AN INVISIBLE POPULATN: SOUTH ASIAN GAY MEN

In a culturally nservative muny, where gog to church and buildg a fay were heavily emphasized, Ahn felt his gay inty kept him “om beg able to participate Korean culture. ” Then, he started equentg GAMeBoi, a weekly Asian Amerin gay party at Wt Hollywood’s Rage Nightclub. He learned to embrace beg both Korean and gay, so much so that he directed “Fire Island, ” a groundbreakg queer Asian Amerin rom- released last year.

Beg Asian Amerin and LGBTQ+ n feel lonely, wh stutns such as ethnic church often disavowg non-heterosexual relatnships while tradnal LGBTQ+ spac such as gay bars n be unwelg to people of lor. “Fdg plac like GAMeBoi, where beg queer and Asian do -exist … It’s not like a 1, 000-year-old Korean cultural rual, but I uld create a new rual, ” said Ahn, a recent Friday, hundreds packed QT Nightlife’s monthly K-Pop Night at Micky’s, a Wt Hollywood gay club a block or so east om the old GAMeBoi posed for selfi a pk Barbie box wh dis balls hangg overhead.

THIS IS WHAT IT'S LIKE TO TRAVEL AS A GAY ASIAN MAN

” (Michael Owen Baker / For The Tim) Even historilly gay neighborhoods like Wt Hollywood or San Francis’s Castro district, Asian Amerins have long been ignored or fetishized, seen as feme and weak.

In 2019, then-Wt Hollywood Mayor John Duran argued that he did not appropriately touch a member of the Gay Men’s Chos of Los Angel bee “he’s a skny Korean kid wh pimpl on his cheek.

” Asian Amerin advocy groups cricized Duran’s remark, wh API Equaly-LA potg to the long history of discrimatn agast Asian men gay muni such as Wt Hollywood, whose clubs “ed to require three forms of photo intifitn om anyone they perceived as Asian. ” said Crisman, a 36-year-old gay Korean Amerin rearcher and artist.