- I don't want you to date me
just because you find Asians attractive.
- Right. - But also don't tell me
that you don't date Asians. - Right.
That's not gonna do anything for this interaction.
- That's absolutely not gonna help.
(soft music)
- I don't really identify or ascribe
to just one specific gender presentation.
My gender is kind of like an ongoing project
and an ongoing dialogue.
- My pronouns are she and her, I don't switch,
I'm never anything different on specific days.
- Whenever I'm in new spaces and people ask me,
you know, what are my pronouns, I say,
they, them, he, him, she, her.
You literally cannot mis-gender me.
- My pronoun is they them.
I don't want to be lumped into male or female,
and growing up for me,
I always identified as almost neither.
- I came out I think it was my senior year of high school.
I told everybody at the dinner table.
I could just imagine my parents being like, okay Jensen,
the food's getting cold.
But they were just kinda like yeah, sounds about right.
They were just like,
you know we're gonna love you regardless.
- I saw the movie "Blue Is the Warmest Color"
(speaking in foreign language)
♪ But I get it every night ♪
(speaking in foreign language)
- And I was like, mmhmm, message received.
And I wrote this essay immediately afterwards.
I played the trailer for the movie
to my family. - Oh my god!
- And then I made them all read the essay with me
while I just sat there.
I thought I was gonna be fine,
I was so like yeah, this is gonna be what it is,
I'm coming out, I'm doing this thing,
and then just bawled.
- I hit public school in 10th grade
when I was like, maybe I'm a little gay,
but I'm not sure.
I was like, "Mom, I don't think I'm straight."
She's like, "Oh, no, it's just a phase,"
We never talked about it again. (laughs)
- So I came out in high school first
to my friends and my peers.
I remember one of my teachers,
who was actually my math teacher,
and he was Asian.
He was like, "Sam, no, you're not gay, and God loves you."
I didn't know how to challenge him other than just exist,
and it was a hard time for me because
I was going through, like almost took my life.
And I think, especially being queer and Asian,
and having to uphold not only the standards
of being what it meant to be Asian,
but also always having to choose
which identity I wanna fight for.
- When I'm seeking out community in Asian-American spaces,
I'm too queer or I'm too non-binary.
It's really hard to find these spaces
that sorta coalesce all my different identities together.
I rely on what I've learned as an Asian-American
to foster community as a queer person.
- The sort of perception that I give off most of the time
when I am meeting new people
is that of somebody who is an Asian man.
So that already has so much things to unpack within itself,
like western concepts of masculinity,
this inherent femininity that Asian people possess.
(sexual music)
- I, as a queer, non-binary, Chinese-American fem
just don't date white people anymore.
I need someone to be eye-level with me about
so many different issues,
and unfortunately, I think when it comes to romance,
we have this very culinized notion
of what a beautiful and incredible
and worthy of love partner is,
and what I've realized is a cis, slim,
euro-centrically beautiful white person
is not the thesis of beauty,
and is not the ultimate version
of what we should aspire to or aspire to want.
That's a big thing for me
because that means that I love myself better.
- My first date mate was not Asian,
but after a few months
I realized they had an Asian fetish.
I don't want you to date me
just because you find Asians attractive.
- Right. - But also, don't tell me
that you don't date Asians, - Right.
- That's not gonna do anything for this interaction.
- That's absolutely not gonna help.
And also don't date me as a non-binary person
to prove your woke-ness (Jensen cheering)
or prove how progressive you are about gender.
(Jensen wooing)
It sucks when you learn it too late.
You gotta go back and be like, this ex looks like me,
this ex looks Constance Wu,
this ex looks like Gemma Chan,
and you're like, wait a minute.
- There's a--
- You love crazy rich Asians.
(both laughing)
- And I'm only two of those things.
- Yeah. (laughs)
- Being queer and Asian is really difficult and hard
because there aren't very many representations
of queer Asians out there.
Growing up I felt like I was
always looking for folks to look up to.
- I feel like with this sort of Asian wave
that people are calling it, with, you know,
"Crazy Rich Asians", "Fresh Off the Boat",
"To All the Boys I've Loved Before",
I think we're just beginning to get a scope
of what it means to be somebody of the Asian diaspora.
- We need darker skinned Asians, we need South Asians,
we need disabled Asians,
working class Asians because we are infinity complex,
so we need all that representation.
(upbeat music)