#VietPride2019 The 2019 LGBTQ Pride parade in Ho Chi Minh City (VietPride Saigon) began in six locations. People traveled together via bicycle, motorbike, and on foot. Students took buses from far-away colleges. One parade contingent marched by Notre Dame Cathedral Saigon, and a group of Catholics came out to greet them and bless them. Contingents from a handful of companies marched out from Aeon shopping mall, including a huge group wearing t-shirts for the popular gay dating app Blued. By 4pm, over 2,000 people converged on Nguyen Hue Walking Street, Saigon’s recently built public plaza by the waterfront. They unfurled a giant 30 meter by 20 meter rainbow flag, which has been present at every VietPride Saigon since it began in 2012. Hundreds of the marchers gathered and danced ...
Founding A Community For Transgender Men in Vietnam
Interview with Mai Như Thiên Ân, the Founder of FTM Vietnam It was one of the biggest flash mobs Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) had ever seen. Five hundred LGBT people were dancing underneath an enormous rainbow flag, stretching 30 meters wide by 20 meters tall. Saigon was celebrating its first-ever LGBT Pride, VietPride, in September 2012. And one of the people dancing in the flash mob was Mai Như Thiên Ân (Ân), a transgender man who had come out. Ân had been hesitant to take part in the flash mob. He was struggling with depression, fueled by rejection by his family and at school. But his friend Nguyễn Thiện Trí Phong (a.k.a. Aki), a transgender man he’d met online, encouraged him, saying ‘if you don’t do it, who will.” The experience for Ân was life-changing. As Ân told ...
Dating, Disclosure, and the Transgender Panic Defense
On July 31, 2019, BBC World Service aired a radio segment on dating as a transgender person. Specifically, they asked three transgender women, including myself, to share with them "how and when transgender people should reveal their identity to the person they are dating." They aired about one minute of the response I submitted to them, along with responses from the other two women. You can listen to the audio embedded below, archived from BBC's website: While it was exciting to be consulted on the topic by the BBC, I was disappointed that they did not include any of my statement where I discussed discrimination, stigma, and violence that transgender women regularly face. In particular, I discussed the “transgender panic defense,” an insidious concept that excuses violence against ...
The Woman Who Built a Home for the Singapore Transgender Community
An interview with June Chua, founder of Singapore's only transgender homeless shelter June Chua’s philosophy is simple, “I don’t want to tell the Singapore transgender community what to do. I want the community to tell me how I can support them.” June is the co-founder of the T Project Singapore, which provides services to support the Singapore transgender community including housing, a food bank, peer counseling, and corporate sensitivity workshops. Her organization, which she co-founded with her late sister in 2014, was the first transgender-led and transgender-focused organization in Singapore, and it has made her one of the most visible leaders of the Singapore transgender community. I recently had a chance to sit down and chat with her about her life and her work. Before ...
Three Transgender Leaders Changing the Face of Thai Politics
Until recently, Tanwarin Sukkhapisit was known primarily as a film director who pushed the limits of LGBT representation in Thai cinema. But just a few days ago, she was sworn in as Thailand’s first transgender member of parliament. While Thailand has long been known for its highly visible and diverse transgender population, it’s only in recent years that transgender people have become more visible in the political realm. Tanwarin Sukkhapisit, along with Shane Bhatla, the Transgender Program Manager at Out BKK, and Pauline Ngarmpring, who recently ran for Prime Minister, are three transgender leaders re-shaping advocacy at a crucial time for Thai democracy. The election held in March 2019, the first since a military junta seized power in 2014, proved to be a watershed moment for ...
Celebrating the Power of Transgender Stories On IDAHOT 2019
Today, May 17, as the world marked IDAHOT 2019 (International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia), I spent the day in Bangkok surrounded by my new transgender family. In just two months of travel, I've already befriended an amazing community of activists from across Southeast Asia. This blog, TransWorldView, is where I'll be sharing their stories and my experiences as I continue to travel the world solo as a transgender woman from the United States. This journey truly began twelve years ago, in 2007. Back then, as the only transgender woman at Swarthmore College, I spent many of my days feeling desperately alone. I was shy, awkward, and didn’t go out to many parties. I had some gay and lesbian friends on campus, but I didn’t really fit in with them; they were loud, ...