Dialogues Issues - Sexual Identities/LGBT 

When I first took my partner down to meet my parents, we were returning from a weekend getaway in Monterey. We went out to a nice dinner and then headed to their house to relax & socialize for a bit before continuing our journey back home to San Francisco. The conversation (inevitably) turned toward my childhood & whatever embarrassing pictures could be displayed or stories related.We ended up focusing on my early childhood years...

 

I was lucky to go to an awesome preschool. I don't have many concrete memories of it (I'm more of an emotional memory kind of kid--I remember how things *feel* rather than how they actually *were*), but I remember it being one of the happiest times of my life. Getting messy, learning new information about the world, hanging out with all my besties, climbing anything in front of me, having camp-outs, playing with animals, roughhousing...you get the idea.

 

 

 

One of the things the preschool did was have parents create scrapbooks for their kids--one of the coolest things ever, in my humble opinion. I mean, not only capturing pictures of me at that age, but my artwork & words put down verbatim--oh the things I said! And man, that tendency to tell stories? Definitely inborn. Also inborn? We chuckled at the part that described my personality: 'Shy, strong-willed, aggressive' (yep, all three simultaneously--and still true today!), 'Does not take defeat well.'

 

 

We kept flipping through the pages. Picture after picture of me; shaving with my dad (one of my *favorite* things to do), straddling my trike with hips cocked & a tough look on my face (premonition of me on my motorcycle so many years in the future?), and most importantly (and frequently) me playing dress-up. When we reach the picture of me wearing an adult-sized petticoat up around my chest with a baby tucked under one arm steering a shopping cart with the under all topped off by a football helmet, my partner turned to me and said: 'Even when you were a kid, your gender was THIS BIG.'

 

All I could do was shrug & nod with a sheepish grin. Yeah--that and I wanted it all, even back then.

 

I used to joke that I was a fag trapped in a dyke's body. Back when I had time to perform, my bio started: 'The bastard love child of an opera singer and a madman, Charlie was taken in by drag queens and schooled in proper faggish fashion, diction, etiquette, and grandiose metaphor.' I still tell people that 'My mother was an opera singer, so I was raised by queens.' The point of the story is, I was not only raised with gay men as role models, but I identified with so many of the specific emotive and playful aspects they embraced from the culture of theater/music within which they made their lives. So what the hell does that make me?

 

Part of the problem is that I can't decide. I can't commit to being one or the other. I took a boy's name so I could feel comfortable wearing dresses; I have more ties and more dicks than most of my 'butch' partners--and get more use out of them too; last year I lopped most of my chest off, but then kept growing my hair out to ridiculously feminine proportions. I struggled for a long time trying to figure out if I was trans before realizing I was just genderqueer. A queer genderqueer, to be ever so elusively precise. Because that's the thing--it's not that I wanted to be a boy or a girl. I just wanted to be a kid playing dress-up, and let my whims and whimsy take hold every day. Let the imaginative power and magic shape my interactions with the world through choosing the presentation that shapes my role in it. I wanted to be able to (re)invent myself everyday.

 

 

 

A big part of the problem is that I rarely like baggy clothes, and when I do bust out that wardrobe I merely resonate dyke--more sexual identity than gender identity. In addition, my 'boy' is usually either a queeny preener or a dapper prancer.  Give me a tight, trashy shirt & slutty pants (see: Queer as Folk, Emmett) or something beautifully tailored & labeled (see: Glee, Kurt). Those + female secondary sex characteristics (does not equal) dancing queen--at least not in the way I want it to.

So I read as 'girl' most of the time. And because I have the experience, I can play that role well--often so well that individuals don't see the subtler shades of gender that ripple across my skin when I turn my face to the world. They don't see that this 'femme' thing is just a front, that I make my way with a coy but deliberate tribute to all things camp, that there is a subtle subterfuge to each wardrobe decision. They see a fragment, a slice, a sliver of the spectrum. Thankfully, though, I know those who know & love me see the small but fiercely beating heart of agirlboy wonder making its way in the world, one teetering-heeled step at a time.

 

 

 

 

I sit next to my attorney silently, facing the immigration judge. I am told my case (aka my life, aspirations and my body) is under his jurisdiction. I am dressed as professionally as possible to aptly represent my "Alien of Extraordinary Ability" status. I nervously look around the room. My dark eyes catch another attorney behind us signaling me to take off my hat. Promptly I take off my favorite accessory (my only sign of faggotry) to show my compliance with the US judicial practices. The judge begins his inquiry, to which my attorney reveals my HIV status, and my inability to adjust my status even though my petition for permanent residency to the US was granted on the basis of my claim as an "Alien of Extraordinary Ability" in February 2002. The pain of hiding underground, days of unemployment, hunger, fear of accessing treatment leading me to near death flashes across my mind. Where would I turn for the wasted seven years of my life? Will this judge be able to understand the lost wages, aspirations, depression and most of all the psychological violence of being separated from my beloved parents? It is clear my journey to justice is only beginning. This blog post is my first public step in ending isolation, silence, fear and their antecedent dysfunctions that the HIV ban on immigration and travel has wrought upon my life. It has disrupted my educational, work and all major life aspirations. I have silently watched my friends getting married, accessing green card, completing their PhD's and accumulating life assets. I have very vocally over the last six years worked with LGBT immigrants, helped them with their asylum claims, and watch them move on with their lives. Whereas, I have had to hide in fear, live on friends couches, clean apartments, meticulously plan my travels within the US, face Kaposi Sarcoma, PCP (all very avoidable if medications are accessed on time). Publicly my body is mapped as that of an Immigration and Education Policy Expert, whereas privately I have been intimately aware that any inkling of my health status would have me labeled "diseased, public burden". Yet I know that my life and story is not the only one, there are several HIV positive immigrants silently waiting for some form of relief, as they continue to work hard, and pay taxes. The United States has denied the entry of HIV+ people for both short term travel and immigration since 1987. This exclusionary practice follows a long history of excluding immigrants into the United States on public health grounds. Since the 1890’s the US Congress empowered the federal government to turn back those with loathsome or dangerous contagious diseases. The rational for such exclusions ostensibly being two folds; i) protecting the public health of US citizenry and ii) Reducing the burden on health care expenses of the US government. The intersections of racism, xenophobia and public health becomes evident when these bans are contextualized within the demographic profiles of generations of incoming immigrants and those who are excluded. In the early 1990’s during the Haitian Refugee crisis, all Haitian detainees at Guantanamo were forcibly tested for HIV, and those found positive were detained in Guantanamo under un-hygienic conditions. The Haitian Centers Council successfully fought a case for the release of the terminally ill detainees. The entire situation created a renewed fear of “diseased foreigners”, and prompted Congress to consider legislation that legally deemed HIV+ persons as “inadmissible”. Review of the congressional hearing proceedings reveals deployment of xenophobic, HIV phobic and homophobic remarks by those in support of the ban. A large coalition of medical, legal and LGBT rights organizations opposed the ban, but in wake of virulent AIDS phobia and stigma of the early 1990’s, and fear of a flurry of HIV+ immigrants driving up health care costs in the US, the ban was adopted. The ban has disproportionately impacted immigrants of color, since majority of recent immigrants to the US are from Latin America, Caribbeans, Asia and Africa. It can also be argued that the ban like other bans in the past is deeply rooted in scientific racism, xenophobia and homophobia. Efforts to remove the HIV ban have largely been organized by HIV/AIDS, LGBT rights and some immigrant rights organizations. In 1990, several medical, Gay and Lesbian and Immigrant organizations such as Gay Men’s Health Crisis, the American Medical Association lobbied the Health and Human Services (HHS) to remove HIV from its list of inadmissible diseases. As the HHS was preparing recommendations, the then Republican dominated Congress pushed through a bill that eventually made it a law to ban HIV+ individuals from entering the country. Since then, extensive on the ground organizing has been conducted by grass-roots immigrant organizations, who worked to push policy organizations to bring the removal of the ban back as an agenda item, to their work. In May of 2006 the “Lift the Bar Coalition” was formed, lead by Gay Men’s Health Crisis, Queers for Economic Justice, The Audre Lorde Project, Immigration Equality, HIV/AIDS organizations such as African AIDS Services and AIDS Action along with immigrant rights organizations such as the National Immigrant Justice Center. As the New Voices fellow I was one of the lead community organizers around the initiatives to "Lift the Ban”. I recall organizing community forums, strategizig with coalition members, while every cell in my body wanted to announce loudly my own health status, and the ways I have had to hide in fear. On July 2008, after years of significant on the ground organizing, and lobbying “Lift the Bar Coalition” was successful in removing the HIV ban language from the “Immigration and Nationality Act”. The coalition met with offices of Senator John Kerry and Representative Barbara Lee to tag the removal of the ban along with the “President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief” (PEPFAR).HIV still remains on the list “inadmissible diseases” with the HHS. The HHS has recently released renewed guidelines indicating a possible laxer standard, we are yet to see these being finalized. As I continue to wait to adjust my status, I have begun my own journey to health and justice. Justice for me would be the very undoing of stigma in legal and societal practices for people living with HIV and AIDS, people from disability communities, and many other folks who are labeled diseased and marginalized. On the eve of the National Equality March, I challenge all of us to go beyond notions of equality under the law, and invite us to re imagine the basic foundation of our LGBT movement as "transformative justice". While cost-benefit analysis along with equality as a rhetoric helped us push the lifting of the HIV Ban with lawmakers on H street, the struggle is yet to be over. Justice will be served to me when I can visit my beloved parents after being separated from them for 13years. I will see justice when every immigrant is imagined as a human being with dreams, aspirations and emotions. Justice will shine when all LGBT people will be able to live life free of shame and fear, and for each of these to happen we need to go beyond our focus on public policies, we need to expand our work to incorporate strategies that fundamentally alter power relations in society. As I get ready to hit the "publish" button on my laptop, I fear of what may come from being public through this blog while my case is still pending. At the same time I am letting go of pain, fear and silence that almost drove me to near death. Finally, I have to admit I am planning on "getting on the bus" for National Equality March, however mine is a bus for justice, peace, redistribution of economic resources, labor and human rights, all intrinsically related to the liberation of LGBT people. Find me marching with friends and long time allies at the National Gay Lesbian Taskforce . The Taskforce over the years has shown me they are reflexive about their mistakes, build on victories and have historically fought for policy changes along with building a movement for social justice. Whom ever you march with, party with or end up hooking up with at the after march revels; ensure to spread the passion for liberation and justice. Note: this post is dedicated to my beloved mother, father, my friends and allies; Myna Mukherjee, Raili Roy, Sougato Kerr, Nancy Ordover, Carl Utt, Navid Alam, Amar Puri, Maria Nakae, Ken Williams, Prantik Saha, David Fuentes, Shweta Malhotra, Marian Thambynayagam, Angela Mooney D'Arcy, Mia Mingus, Sonali Sadiquee, Kerry Lobel, Beth Zemsky, Amber Hollibaugh, Abbie Boggs, Suzanne Pharr,Joo Hyan Kang, Trishala Deb, Mimi Jefferson, Debra East, Leslie Van Barselaar, Jo Anne Demark, Monami Maulik, Bo Young, Joey Cain, Lisa Thomas Adeyemo, Sue Hyde, Lisa Weiner Mahfuz, Rodrigo Brandao, Michelle Lopez, Susan Misra, Ruso Panduro, Marta Doanayre, Piali Mukhejee, Paul Knox and all the hot leather daddies who have helped me rediscover my body and ability to experience pleasure.

(Originally posted on wiqaable.com)

One of the few things I can't handle is people's injury stories. People talk about their injuries and scars as if they would make them more brave or honorable or whatever, but frankly, I think it's disrespectful to talk about painful stories in front of a person who just can't handle it. Is it about masculinity? Do you need to talk about your scars to prove how "dangerous" or "strong" you are? Well, I don't care. So next time you see me, please don't talk about breaking your bones.

This is because I've never had any big injury since I was born. I've never broken my bones, I've never gotten into car accidents, and I've never fallen down the stairs. I've been so fortunate that I don't know how painful it would be to get your bones broken, and I would imagine the most extreme pain possible right before I pass out. That's a painful imagination.

I've never been really sick either, except for occasional skin problems I always had growing up. I've never gotten a flu, I've never had food poisoning, and I've never been hospitalized. I'm not saying that I've always been healthy, but if health is determined, simplistically, by the absence of disease or injury, I've always enjoyed my health.

Perhaps this is part of the reason why I don't like going to a hospital. I'm so unfamiliar with that super clean and slightly sorrowful atmosphere inside the building. I also don't really trust Western medicine because my mother is an acupuncturist. In addition, what I've noticed recently is that sexist American culture associates the acts of being sick and weak, going to the hospital, getting taken care of, and even taking care of someone, with feminine quality. I'm part of it; I believe it's not only me who think somehow recovering from a cold without medical care is something to be proud of, therefore, masculine. Simply put, in American culture, healthy is masculine, sick (and weak) is feminine.

I believe that health means differently to different people. It may entail physical, mental, and emotional health, and it may refer to having a perfectly functioning body or being able to feel empowered and enjoy everyday life. And I think to some people, being healthy also means being able to compromise their health without being afraid of bankruptcy.

I was astounded when I learned that there was no universal health care in the United States. I really thought it was a wrong piece of information. I thought it was a joke. Indeed, it's a ridiculous story that makes nobody laugh but makes everyone angry. When I was in Japan, I had access to health care through my father's Employee's Heath Insurance, just like anyone else. When my father was unemployed, I had access to health care through local government-supported health insurance, just like anyone else. In Japan, I enjoyed being healthy, which I believed was a basic human right. But I guess it's considered a privilege in some countries like the United States of America.

I'm still baffled by this fact--the world's arguable superpower cannot even protect its own citizens (let alone immigrants). What do you do when you get sick and if you don't have health insurance? You don't go to a hospital and just wait for the body to win. What do you do when you're house is on fire? I don't think you wait for your house to be burned down; you call the fire department. What do you do when the environment is polluted and destroyed? I don't think you wait for the rain forests to clean the air, for the ocean to dissolve the pollutant, or the Earth to get cold again; you stop driving, you turn off lights, and you stop buying things. It's as natural as that.

You might be wondering why I'm writing about health care on wiqaable. The reason is simple, health care access is about gender, race and sexuality, as much as it is about class, and immigration status, and so on. And, believe it or not, it's about life and death.

A study reports that 45,000 uninsured people die early deaths every year in the United States. This particular article reports that Dr. Wilper says, “Although blacks and Hispanics are more likely to end up uninsured, racial differences in the percentages of deaths was not statistically significant.” This is clearly a confusing, if not misleading, statement. First, it is true that African Americans and Latin@s are less likely to have health insurance. Second, it is true that people of color are more likely to get injured or sick because they are more likely to work and live in dangerous and polluted environment. It's called environmental racism. If we think of why and how people get sick, as well as whether they're insured or not, health care access obviously has everything to do with race.

Similarly, the issue of health care access speaks directly to Queer communities. How many years did Reagan take to admit and publicly announce that AIDS was a serious epidemic? Many of us remember what it means to be denied access to health care, and, health itself. Imagine what percentage of sex workers, female, male, or trans, have health insurance. Imagine what percentage of undocumented immigrants, from Mexico, China, or the Philippines, have health insurance. And those are the people we live together. Those are the people who support our daily lives. Those are, in fact, us.

How many more years are you willing to wait for universal access to health care? Even without looking at other countries, I frankly think that the United States should be deeply ashamed of its failure to take care of its residents. With its twisted idea of glorified masculinity, I really hope the U.S. will not start boasting about enduring its diseases or bragging about its injuries, without realizing that they are actually deep and fatal.

What does it mean to have a gay Korean American man as today's best-known face of so-called "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" controversy?

In my narrow mind, rainbow flags don't match military camouflage patterns, and Korean blood doesn't mix well with American coca-cola. In front of my face, in a picture, Dan Choi (pronounced like che) wears a smile in a built body in front of a rainbow flag, out and proud and patriotic. I guess.

I have avoided talking, writing, or even thinking about him until now because I knew that if I had been to question him, I would have had to talk intensely to myself as an anti-militaristic Queer Korean man. Am I ready yet? Probably not. But I just couldn't ignore my inner questioning self.

In case you haven't noticed, I believe that everyone should be discouraged to join military, whether Queer or not-yet-Queer-minded. I also believe that everyone should be encouraged to develop critical thinking and anti-oppression ideology. If one is to call "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy oppressive, one shall also point out the oppressive nature of militarism. Therefore, my brain refuses to accept any ideas but "Don't Serve, Don't Kill." And of course, I'm particularly against U.S. (and Japanese) military because of its past and ongoing wrongdoings in various world regions like East Asia, Pacific, and Southwestern Asia (aka Middle East). If people were to understand Corean/Korean history somewhat like I do (and some Zainichi experiences might be a good spice), I believe that they would all be anti-military, be it Japanese, U.S., or whatever.

When people ask Choi why he joined, he says that he wanted to serve something greater than himself. And I think that's quite a twisted way of thinking.

Choi's mother, a Korean war orphan, opposed his joining. I can understand. His father, a hardcore Christian, has told him that in "Korea," a man wouldn't be treated as an adult no matter how old he is if he didn't serve in the military. Here, I take a deep sigh. Oh "Korea." After millions of us killed in decades of war and colonization, "Korea" still haunts the minds of so many Koreans, men in particular, on both sides of the "border" and elsewhere.

"Korea" often refers only to the southern part of the Korean peninsula, or the Republic of Korea; meanwhile, the northern part, or the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, is always called "North" Korea, as if there are two legitimately opposing nations and two different peoples. Many Korean Americans seem to identify with "South Korea" more than "North Korea." I know that many people still believe in one Korea/Corea, too; however, I have observed that so many of them still do not question the common assumptions about "North Korea," thus lazily aligning themselves with "South Korea" just because it's less demonized and more familiar. (This can be said to some Zainichi Koreans as well, to some extent.) After all these years, Koreans all over the world have gotten used to the division, and are having difficulties even imagining one Korea again. And some of us don't even know who divided us and why. The most critical part of our contemporary history is missing, sometimes entirely, from our knowledge. That's what really divides us.

Anyway, the tragedy, from my point of view, is that this Korean guy believed that serving in the U.S. military is about "serving something greater" than himself, and that having an oppressed identity neither stopped him from nor made him question doing that. Instead I ask: why has our country been divided? Why is it that men in "Korea" need to serve in the military in the first place? Why would it be so honorable to be trained by our enemy to kill our own people?

My discomfort also comes from this feeling that whenever he is hailed as the anti-Don't Ask, Don't Tell person, it makes me feel like the Korean War is being legitimatized and justified, even more so by some patriotic White American gays and lesbians who happen to be the main people working behind this "controversy" to make it a controversy, as if this is more important to all parts of diverse Queer communities than creating safe schools, securing equitable and sustainable health care, and so on. In other words, all the issues that are important to me seem to become invisible behind Choi's smile.

In addition, I can't help but think that he is being (or will be) tokenized. In the event that he is allowed to serve again, Choi will likely be seen as the token of "diversity acceptance" of the U.S. military. A gay Korean man, who would have been too "foreign" only a few years ago, serving the U.S. military publicly to signify both the tolerance of the U.S. and the patriotism of Queer and Korean/Asian American communities, without a real recognition of his people in the northern part.

Hyung, not that it's your fault, but I will be ashamed to near death on that day.

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Michelle Chen, among a few others, wrote recently about the opposition among LGBT and queer people, particularly those of color, to the further expansion of US hate crimes laws: http://www.racewire.org/archives/2009/08/do_unto_others_the_moral_slope.html.  To quickly summarize their argument… given the unequal application of the law, namely the racial inequality in the criminal justice and legal systems, why should we further contribute to the power the law has in terms of incarceration.  Furthermore, given our increasing awareness of the physical, emotional, and sexual violence that transgender people face in prisons, why would we want to put more transphobic in prison for longer periods of time.  Just for clarity sake, I should note that the recent discussion in Congress is about the Matthew Shepard act, which would expand federal hate crime laws to include sexual orientation and gender identity and expression.

 

Chen et al.’s argument is not to be taken lightly.  Like with any advocacy regarding sexuality, we should be mindful of the racial, gender, class, nationality, ability, age, and religious implications.  For example, a number of activists and commentators have critiqued the primacy of marriage equality advocacy among LGBT activists and politicians, whereas it will do little to improve the lives of LGBT people that also face sexism, racism, transphobia, classism, xenophobia, religious intolerance, ageism, and ableism.

But, I have to politely disagree with their argument – not to say that they are wrong, but to say that their efforts may be misplaced.  Rather than opposing the legal and symbolic protection of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, genderqueer, and queer people, I would suggest that efforts are directed toward ensuring racial equality in the application of the law.  As a sociologist, I am particularly attuned to the mutual relationship between individuals and society.  The progress of this hate crime bill, which has failed every year for the past 10 or so years, but with clear potential of passage now, is a clear sign of the impact activists and legislators can have in changing how the government conceptualizes crime, particularly bias-motivated crimes.  On the flip side, institutions, like the government, have a strong influence in culture and the way people view the world.  The inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity and expression sends a loud and clear message to the individuals of this country that LGBT and queer people are to be respected and treated fairly as heterosexuals and cisgender (those who are not transgender) people are.

With the depressing number of transpeople who have been murdered in the past few years, and with the confidence that the current hate crime law can pass, I find it to be dangerous to pass this opportunity to expand the hate crime law.  But, I also encourage changing the application of the law so that racial inequalities in the courts and prisons are eliminated.  I encourage restructuring of the prison system so that transpeople, and all people for that matter, are no longer at risk for assault, rape, and murder.  And, I note, some of the transphobia we see today can be lessened tomorrow with laws on the books that acknowledge the lives and worth of transpeople.