8 Asians

Being gay and Asian means hiding a part of yourself from many in your life, and this is especially true in Asian countries compared with those of us who are fortunate enough to live in the United States or Canada. Times have changed, and it’s probably easier now in the United States than it’s ever been before to be both gay and Asian (the way to be a truly bad Asian). But in countries like [...] Continue »

“A Woman Named Canyon Sam” is a testament to a woman who passionately committed herself to social change from a young age, chronicling her first coming out as a young Asian American lesbian in the seventies — one of the first “out” Asian American lesbians in North America — to publishing her award-winning 2009 book, Sky Train. “A Woman Named Canyon Sam” is now available to the world for free on Youtube. At a run [...] Continue »

Boystown is the working title for a proposed web series about 3 gay men, with the lead character being an Asian Canadian. The three lead actors are Richard Lee, Adamo Ruggiero, and Ben Lewis and the footage is from a short film called “Gaysian,” which is a comedy about a gay Asian man dealing with different forms of racism in the gay world, and even in himself. Says Director/Writer Austin Wong: There is an epidemic [...] Continue »

Congressman Mark Takano, of the 41st Congressional District of California (Riverside, California area) visited San Francisco this past Sunday, February 17th and was a guest of San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee at a community event held at the Lady Shaw Senior Center in Chinatown. Lee made some opening remarks prior to Takano speaking. I had blogged about Congressman Takano recently, as he was just elected this past November and made history by being the first [...] Continue »

Andy Marra, a Korean adoptee, shares the touching story about tracking down her Korean birth mother, whose love and acceptance allowed her to continue her male-to-female transition: “To this day I am astounded by my mother’s supernatural intuition despite the language and cultural barriers that still exist between us. I felt a great sense of relief when she helped me come out. My mother started to show her acceptance through simple acts. She would brush [...] Continue »

Please watch this trailer of Quentin Lee’s White Frog…and for the love of God will you please just try to hold back your tears? The movie looks great. It has a top notch cast including Glee homeboy (Harry Shum Jr.), Asian chick from Twin Peaks (Joan Chen), the go-to Asian dude for everything (B.D. Wong), Lady Deathstrike (Kelly Hu) and the adorable wolf from those low-budget Twilight movies (Booboo Stewart). The story looks heartwarming and, [...] Continue »

Yes, it’s true – Asians are the fastest growing ethnic group in the United States, beating out Latinos and Hispanics. You could even say – according to this local television screen grab from San Francisco’s KRON 4 – that Asians are topping Hispanics for the first time. (Meanwhile, gay Asian Americans everywhere are looking at this and saying to each other “for the first time? Honey, we’ve been topping Hispanics a long, long time ago.” [...] Continue »

UPDATE: Shortly after this article was published, the LA Weekly reported that Pacquiao was misquoted, saying that “homosexuality goes against the word of God — not that gays should literally be put to death.” The blog post remains for reference and as an opinion piece. – The Editor In the matter of two days, Manny Pacquiao has managed to alienate himself from significant parts of his fan base by stating some rather eyebrow-raising opinions about [...] Continue »

Dharun Ravi, the roommate of a gay Rutgers student who committed suicide after spying on him and tweeting his escapades, has been found guilty of invasion of privacy, witness tampering, and evidence tampering. Ravi now faces five to ten years of prison time as well as possible deportation to India. South Asian blog Sepia Mutiny approaches the story from a lesser seen perspective and laments on his sentencing: “Ravi is an immature, upper middle class [...] Continue »

Back in 2010, Prez Obama appointed Amanda Simpson as a senior technical adviser in the Commerce Department. She became one of the first presidentially appointed transgender persons to work in the executive branch. And more recently, Obama has pushed to increase protection for transgender and LGBT people against discrimination, for example in federal housing programs. But will these actions make an impact more than 9000 miles away, in Indonesia? Evie, who was his nanny over [...] Continue »

If you’ve been using Facebook for the past year or so, chances are that you may have come across a hilarious meme, quote, or pictures from a certain “George Takei.” You may be asking yourself, “Wait, George Takei as in that Star Trek Sulu George Takei? He can’t possibly be this witty, funny, and social media relevant!” The answer is a most resounding yes, that is indeed the one and only George Takei.

AAPIP’s Queer Justice Fund recently released the report Missed Opportunities: How Organized Philanthropy Can Help Meet the Needs of LGBTQ AAPI Communities. This report calls out the lack of LGBTQ Foundation funding to LGBTQ AAPI communities and highlights the need to fund AAPI ally organizations that engage in LGBT issues and autonomous LGBTQ AAPI organizations: “Missed Opportunities found that funding in 2009 to LGBTQ AAPI communities amounted to barely 0.7 percent of the total amounted [...] Continue »