Homophobia in Asian communities

While cishet Asian males love to harp about supposed injustices against them, homophobia and the plight of LGBTQIA Asians frequently goes ignored and brushed under the rug.   Whenever the issues of gay and lesbian Asian-Americans are brought up, they are readily dimissed by cishet Asian men who seem more concerned about their "right" to be over-represented at the nation's top universities or the right to date non-Asian women (as if somehow this should be guaranteed simply by being a cishet man).

Too often AAPI activism focuses ONLY on the issues of cishet Asian men, with Asian women and LGBTQIA Asians being forced to take a backseat.  If we believe the cishet-Asian-male metanarrative then we'd end up believing that they're the only victims of a supposed anti-Asian racism while in fact not only are East Asian cishet males the most privileged, they are guilty of perpetrating discrimination against those who are not like them and are often themselves GUILTY of anti-black racism.

But I digress slightly.  Asian homophobia is real with 90% of LGBTIA Asian-Americans experiencing homophobia in their lives.  This is often exacerbated by religious beliefs especially among those who identify as Christian or Catholic.  Political leanings also have much to do with homophobia.  Unsurprisingly Asians who identify as Republican expressed homophobic ideas as did Republicans of all races but so did Chinese-Americans who have positive views of the current Chinese regime.  One of the original sponsors of the bigoted Proposition 8, was of Chinese background (Hak-Shing William Tan), while Korean-Americans by and large supported it.

Whether these Asian homophobes are claiming that they're spokespeople for "God" or whether their homophobia is a result of totalitarian government brainwashing or willing ignorance we may never know.  What they should do however is do some real research rather than simply play a game of bias reinforcement.

Isn't it about time that ALL Asian-Americans were treated with respect as human beings?  Then we need to speak out against homophobia in the Asian community.  In the meanwhile, LGBTQIA Asians do not owe any loyalty to the very people who are excluding them and in many cases suppressing them.  To do so is to go against the very principles of equality.