Reading the oral histories of gay Asian Americans got me thinking about the relevance of their accounts to the lives of queer people of color today. Eroticization and discrimination were not only obvious themes in these pre-AIDS oral stories, they persist as harsh realities for gay Asian Americans in the present.
As a marginalized group, the LGBTQ+ community is surprisingly 'tolerant' of racism. Sexual racism manifests in phrases such as "No blacks. No Asians." on dating websites and applications. By contrast, sexual objectification based on racial stereotypes also perpetuate racist perceptions vis-à-vis queer persons of color. This further complicates how masculinity is perceived in relation to race and ethnicity, and the troubling narrative of internal discrimination within the LGBTQ+ community.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/24/no-asians-no-blacks-gay-people-racism
Thanks for sharing this article because I think it's incredibly overlooked (at least to the best of my knowledge). This summer after the Orlando shooting, I attended a vigil in San Francisco and I remember a significant theme throughout the vigil was the focus on the Latino LGBT community and the importance of involving non-white community leaders. Hopefully efforts such as these can help combat racism in the community
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