Lnchg Thursday is a brightly lored nned vodka and soda beverage lled Gay Water that proudly displays who ’s for, stead of backg off om support for the LGBTQ+ muny like Bud Light did.
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GAY WATER, A NEW NNED CKTAIL, WANTS TO BE THE ANTI-BUD LIGHT
Andrew Ahn’s father once told him that there were “no gay people Korea.”Ahn was so aaid of his parents’ reactn if he me out to them that he had a backpack and a iend on standby se he need to leave. 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.
But the muny is beg visible — California now has an out Asian Amerin ngrsman and state legislators — and partyg person remas an important way to nnect, even an onle age.“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, 37.On 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 se.Some posed for selfi a pk Barbie box wh dis balls hangg overhead. “If we get our face out there, then people will start takg a ltle more serly.” (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.