Posts tagged "lgbtq"
← All tags-
Bawling at Birdsong
From a late night Mastodon thread about homesickness. Two years before I moved to the United States, I wrote something called ‘things I will miss when I have to leave Southeast Asia (because I am queer)’. I predicted that I would be deeply homesick, not for Singapore specifically, but for the entire region. Even though…
-
How to get a H1-B1 Visa for Singaporeans
An updated, updated guide to the H1-B1 visa process for Singaporeans. Singaporean citizens (and Chileans) are eligible for the H1-B1, a unique work visa of the US that was negotiated as part of a free trade agreement in 2004. There are 5400 visas set aside for Singaporeans, and 1400 for Chile. From what I know about…
-
What Pride Means to Me
Screenshot of a photo of a queer couple *With my wife Sabrena in the Paris metro in 2022* 1993: I am 8 years old. I am a scared little autistic girl who felt in my bones that there was something strange about me. Was it my obsessive, hyper-fixation on the things that interested me? My intense feelings? Or that I felt I…
-
Wives and Lives
Some thoughts on being a gaysian immigrant to California A scan of a black and white photograph of some Chinese calligraphy writing on a wall in a Chinese restaurant in Oakland, California Two weeks ago, I helped to plan and organize a Lunar New Year dinner for 120 queer and trans Asian people. It's a tradition that…
-
Tenderloin Tessie
Almost 50 years ago, a drag queen named Tessie started feeding the homeless in the Tenderloin and so many decades later the tradition continues. I was grateful to be able to volunteer this past Easter at one of the Tenderloin Tessie events. Every Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas, the organization puts out a massive…
-
The Magazine, SF
There's a curious shop on a street I walk past daily, that makes it look like we're in the '60s. It sells vintage magazines and other memorabilia. It also has vintage theatrical programs and erotica. I thought it would be a nice shot to take photo of a retro magazine store with my retro camera. So here's a shot of The…
-
My wedding in film and digital
My friend Javad Tizmaghz, an excellent photographer and even better woodworker, took our photos for our wedding. It's important to note that queer marriage is not recognized in our home countries. We took these photos, and then we went to Auckland, New Zealand, for the actual ceremony. It was only fitting that these…
-
It's Not Enough to Bear Witness
Two days after the Supreme Court of the United States took this country backwards, with one of the more extreme justices stating that he wished to also examine the constitutional right to same-sex marriage and contraception, I found myself having the same conversation over and over. As a newly arrived foreigner, not…
-
Schrödinger's Lesbian
In 2018 I decided to leave my home country of Singapore even though I once thought I would lead my queer adult life here because it was not a bad one. I decided to leave because I had met the woman I would marry, and there was simply no path for us to lead the sort of life we wanted in both of our home countries. Being…
-
Letter to my Eighteen Year Old Self
In my younger years, meaning when I was a tween, I became acutely aware that my life would be different. I dated boys because I was supposed to, but whenever they said they loved me or that they wanted to marry me, I just shuddered. I don't like it when men sweat, I told them. In hindsight, that was a big, red sign. I…
-
This Modern Love
I have spent the last six weeks in Reno. There was a point, at some time in my life, when "six weeks in Reno" was something I would eventually do — to atone for some adolescent sins. The sin of believing, as you're in the thick of massive progress for people like you, that just because you can do something…
-
Panic at the Disco
Gay clubs were for flowers. Update: I wrote this piece before we learned more about what happened. I'm sorry about misgendering or mis-identifying the victims. I'm 31 in a few months. Not old, but old enough to remember how coming out was not on Tumblr, it was at Taboo. I would go with my best friends, all of us so…
-
The Manual of Intimacy
First, meet a girl for the first time on the lawn in front of her house. Sit very closely by each other. Say hello, I'm a poet. What do you do? When she replies, I'm an entrepreneur. But I also run a charity. Laugh, and give her whisky, the same one that you've been nursing. She comes and she gives you a cigarette, and…
-
To the Young Queer Nerds
Dear (your name here), Imagine for a second that the year is 2000. Holding hands with your girlfriend in public is either an act of defiance or shame. The world is years away from The L Word: nobody knows yet that it sucks, that lesbian life does not have to be "like that". (Bette Porter is bad for you; Jenny…
-
Singapore's So-Called Moral Majority
Call it what you will - if there are some among us in Singapore who fashion ourselves the conservative majority, the silent majority, the moral majority - that line, and its consequent political implementation, is bound to fail. It is not enough to view what we are currently witnessing as a 'culture war', as 'us vs…
-
The Freedom to Love
Ten years ago the Internet was a different place. Singapore was a different place. While it wasn't exactly the sort of pitchfork-wielding, gay-vilifying environment you would imagine, you certainly did not feel like people understood. You felt, at that time, at odds with large swathes of society, as though it would…
-
All In
I turn 29 in a couple of months. T-W-E-N-T-Y-N-I-NE. This is doubly a shock because in my head I feel forever young, partly as a function of always having been the youngest person in every single circle I have run in, from friends to career to everything else really. I started blogging when I was 15 — nearly 15 years…
-
The Geography of Hope
At 18 I certainly believed I knew everything. I did not know just how much it'd hurt this boy's heart if I told him the inevitable: that I was in love with someone he could never be-a woman. We went to our favourite bar and sat glumly while he tried to drink away his pain and anger. At that time it felt as though life…
-
Strange Damascus Memories
2009. "If you are really a lesbian, proveeeeittt! Kiss me NOW!" A giggly girl shrieked, rather loudly, flapping her long, luscious hair about as well. She also had the Arabic equivalent of a Valley Girl accent. In most situations, this might have been a proposition to consider. Except we were in Syria. And I…
-
Another List of Things
(63 Random Things in 2012) 1. Causeway I still remember the day you drove me across the Causeway with our dog and all of my life's belongings in your little car. We made that journey many times, usually in the other direction. Singapore to Kuala Lumpur. Happiness, not desperate anger. We were even talking back then. I…
32 posts tagged "lgbtq"