Subscribe to Breaking News
Loading ...New study finds LGBT Asian American youth face cultural pressure
07.28.2009 5:32pm EDT
(Boston) A new study has found that young LGBT Asian Americans often face unyielding family and cultural social stresses that affect their ethnic and sexual identities.
The study, done by Hyeouk Chris Hahm, an assistant professor at Boston University School of Social Work, and Chris Adkins, an HIV/AIDS clinical social worker, showed that many factors affect young LGBT Asian Americans. According to the United Press International, these factors include “central societal stresses including the role of family life, personal sacrifice for family tranquility and generational clashes, as well as external factors such as racism, sexism and acculturation.”For many, a choice must be made between maintaining an ethnic identity and repressing their sexuality or face being rejected by their family and come out.
According to Science Daily:
“Often, the result for both young men and women is to mask homosexual behaviors and avoid alienating their family and parents’ communities. In their relationships with others, they often have to decide which identity will take precedence: an ethnic or sexual identity.”
Yeah I am Pacific-Islander, yeah Gay Asian Community have it hard than anybody else.. you cannot understand our hardships, and frustrations unless you live under an Asian Family.. White folks understand don’t, thats the truth.. I dont care if you have Asian BF or been with Asian guys..It doesnt face the fact what we Asian men go through..from discrimination .. to disowning your own family or been kicked out coz we come “Out” to our family…You know what we go thru unless you have lived through it.
Well, Bruce, my husband came out to his family ten years ago. He’s Vietnamese. Parents and five siblings, and not one of them have talked to him since. This is very common among Asian friends of ours. I, on the other hand, am Caucasian, and came out to my family of ten, and only one had any problem with it. Somehow I don’t think that “white folks” have enough data to take issue with this article. We “Caucasians” might have a little more, but not much.
Being half-Asian, I understand that awful pressure coming from family. But, I will say to all of you who are facing this very difficult choice (between family and self)–Asian or otherwise–choose yourself.
It’s easier said than done, I know that first hand, but you can’t run away from who and what you are. And if your parents/family can’t accept you as you are, you can find other people who will and they will become your new family.
A line from the movie Mambo Italiano: “The only thing worse than being gay and Italian is… wait… there is nothing worse than being gay and Italian.”
You could replace “Italian” in that quote with virtually any other ethnic group and it would still hold the same amount of truth. Yes, being GLBT is difficult no matter your ethnic/cultural background. But what a lot of you people don’t seem to understand is that there is gross and overt homophobia that is cultivated by ethnic groups far more than by general society at large. There are a lot of places in this world where homo and transsexuality are punishable by death. When people move out of those places, they take their homophobia with them, they take their inclination toward violence with them. America is a melting pot for all kinds of people from all over the world. Do you really think that people aren’t going to take their prejudices with them when they move?
And for the record, it’s not a Judeo-Christian-Muslim influence alone that first spawned an anti-homosexual attitude; even in ancient Greece and Meiji Japan, there were people who hated homosexuals. Prejudices know no time lines or political borders.
Wow. Thanks for this eye opener 365gay. I had no idea. snore. Guess what, being gay isn’t a cake walk for anyone.
Laughable article!
Caucasian people have the same pressures to not be gay or obviously gay!
Who knew being gay had racial pressures too!
LOL ….. white folks have no societal issues to deal with in regards to being gay.
I wish I had known this, my life would have been sooo much different.
I applaud those who have commented and spoken up, and I agree that there is much hypocracy, exploitation and objectification in the LGBT community. I am Caucasian and the statements made here are very true.
No one is blaming anyone, except making others aware of how the actions and behaviors of many in the LGBT community are affect others. This type of dialog is important to bring about awareness and education in the first place. However I don’t think that it is productive to just put all of our problems on homophobes and leave our own house in disarray in the LGBT community. Within the LGBT community there clearly are issues that deal with the collective lack of self-respect from many people as individuals, which forms a self-depreciating and others-depreciating culture of disrespect. We have to learn to be responsible for our own actions too, not just say “the homophobes made me do it”.
This is not a situation of being a victim, but the objective is to make others aware of current issues and challenges, with the idea to start dialog and educate others. I think that what is in order is a degree of respect: mainstream society to respect LGBT people, the larger LBGT community to learn self-respect, Asians to continue to work through the challenges and issues that they face with having one foot in each world, cultural and also as LGBT.
I believe that more people need to come forward to provide support, respect and caring to others who are not necessarily just like ourselves, but to try to learn from the experiences of others. As a Caucasian, I have learned a lot from my Asian friends an owe them a debt of gratitude.
I find this study very interesting. It’s fascinating to compare modern ethic values with those of their ancient counterparts.
If the scholarship in “Homosexuality and Civilization” is at all reliable, pre-European influenced Asian civilizations were rather accepting of homosexual behavior. In the case of Meiji Japan, it was even an ideal.
All of this seems to have changed when the bigoted Christian explorers entered Asia and tried to “save them from themselves.”
Of course it must be remembered that in this civilizations, as in Ancient Greece, men and woman were expected to marry and have children. But extra-marital homosexual affairs weren’t frowned upon.
Yodafriend, what happened to all the good Christian love that they talk about or is it, as it is in most cases, “CONDITIONAL” love which is not love at all.
When my mother found out that I was gay in highschool, she kicked me out of the house. I was homeless, and still had to graduate highschool. Thanks to a friend’s aunt, I was able to stay with her until I graduated. It is truly sad when a parent chooses religion over their child. I know that it is hard in the AA,Asian,and Hispanic communities. I am white, but understand how these races are ripped from their families just for being themselves. Bless you guys for going through this situation. I still don’t have any relationship with my family, and it’s been 18 years since they’ve known I was gay.
Why is this news? Has anyone seen Mulan? Seriously though the truth is this type of cultural homophobia exists in most cultures. I am Italian and I had to make the same choice. I chose to finally be gay old me but still wrestle daily with some of my family’s obvious disappointment with my decision. I really didn’t want to let the people I love the most down but I feel I have no choice when those people make it painfully obvious to only really love the me they want me to be…..: (
Seeing how Asian American youth, like many African American and Hispanic American youth have to hide their sexual orientation and gender identity, due to cultural concerns, demonstrates just how great a task we have before us to ensure all LGBT and questioning youth have support as they deal with issues concerning their sexuality. Our community must meet that challenge.