All through the month of October, we’re celebrating LGBTQ+ history month by honoring extraordinary queer Asian American individuals. You can follow along with “We Were Here, We Are Here” @aaopmn on Instagram!
At AAOP, we’re proud to have many staff members who identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community. We asked some of them to reflect on how their intersectional identities influence their life and work, and what their hopes are for the future of their Asian American and queer communities.
serena hodges, they/them, Gender Justice Organizer:
I’m a bi-racial Asian American mixed with white and identify as queer and non-binary. I’m still learning and making connections about how they interact and what language I use. I often reflect on the ways I’m a culmination of my family’s history, in all of its complexities.
AAOP is a place where all of my identities are held. I hope my relationship to my identity allows my work and ideas to flourish because LGBTQ+ and Asian American exist on a HUGE spectrum and can include so many different people. As someone who holds privilege and experiences of oppression I frame the work the same way.
My hope [for the future] is we don’t assume straightness and gender neutral language is always used in community. That we uphold deep relationships to learn about someone’s identities and whole self instead of expecting Asian American queer folks to “come out” or declare space. And I hope all of this would be made possible because safety isn’t a question, it is a guarantee.
Vang Xor Xiong, he/him, Leadership Development & Movement Director
I identify as bisexual as in attracted to gender like mine and genders unlike mine. I’m also a 1.5 generation Hmong American immigrant. I moved to the United States when I was 8-9 years old. To me, my sexuality is a double edge sword. My sexuality is a direct confrontation of all the patriarchal practices in the Hmong community. I challenge gender and social norms in the ways in which I live my life (sexual identity). But my sexuality doesn’t just highlight the challenges in the Hmong community but it also forces me to think of ways to empower the womxn in my life as well.
Being a young queer/bisexual organizer myself, my approach to building leadership of young people centers around healing, identity and community. With the current structure of society queer folks are more likely to experience some form of trauma than their counterparts, [so] in all leadership development spaces that I occupy I always bring some component of healing, whether that’s affirmation of people’s experiences, wellness check ins or space for processing etc.
In the Hmong community there’s a cultural practice and belief that each individual person has another version of themselves. The English equivalent terminology is Soul Self. Each person’s Soul Self is the truest form of them. When your Soul Self is in pain (mostly emotional) it also manifests in our physiological experiences as well. I think it would be amazing for the Hmong community to connect that Soul Self to not just wellness but also identity(s). In the same way that if I’m not true to my Soul Self, it has health consequences.
I think about the term “culture” and what does that mean. There’s a saying/phrase to express when something is a collective experience of a specific community such as queer culture. I wonder what Asian queer culture [might] mean in conjunction to being queer and Asian. That’s something I would love to see in the future and see how the next generation defines culture in both the context of queerness and cultural identity.
Siena Iwasaki Milbauer, she/her, Content Creator Intern:
I am a multiracial Asian American and identify as queer and pansexual. For many years, I did not have the words to describe these parts of myself. Therefore, the words and titles I have now mean a lot to me, as they were hard-won.
My intersectional identities relate to my work with AAOP because they allow me to bring a very specific perspective to the table. A driving force behind my work at AAOP and elsewhere is the desire to illuminate the stories of underrepresented populations, and that comes from personal experience.
In the future, I hope to see an increase in visibility for Asian American queer folks. I also hope to see more frank conversations happening, and more uplifting of the voices of LGBTQ+ Asian Americans. 50 years from now, I hope that we are vibrantly represented in society, that we have platforms where our voices are amplified, and that young LGBTQ+ Asian Americans feel supported and welcomed in all of their communities.