A Whole New Experience

*FYI: This is kind of like a personal journal entry... Hope you enjoy it! 

Reading articles about ‘L.G.B.T.Q.I.A’ communities, especially the ‘Generation LGBTQIA’ written by Michael Schulman, from the New York Times couldn’t have had a greater impact on me. Having lived my entire life in two countries, Korea and India, where the ‘L.G.B.T.Q.I.A’ communities are practically non-existent, topics on the ‘abnormal’ sexual orientations and gender identities open up a whole new world to me. In spite of its novelty, I believe that the environment that the United States creates where ‘non-straight’ people can express their inconveniences and personal stories openly to the public is conducive to the well-being of its entire people.

High degrees of courage and boldness that people like Stephen Ira, who posted a video on ‘We Happy Trans’ display, astounds and surprises me as a foreigner who is still trying to grasp the culture here in the United States. Furthermore, the fact that a considerable number of higher education institutions such as the University of Pennsylvania and the school I currently attend, University of California at Berkeley actively support and encourage these communities is something I have never experienced before neither in Korea nor in India. Furthermore, people are nonchalant and even proud to be a part of the ‘L.G.B.T.Q.I.A’ communities. For instance, Santiago Cortes, a student at the University of Pennsylvania claims “I wrote about an experience I had with a drag queen as my application essay for all the Ivy Leagues I applied to.”

More appalling to me, so to speak, were the reactions of the public to these communities and people and how widespread and accepted they were in the United States. Obama’s second inaugural speech which talked about gay rights, circulation of articles regarding the issues of the ‘nonconforming’ gender identities and the support provided by a lot of the educational institutions seem to be signs of acceptance or at least attempts to understand the minority groups. However, there is no denial that people still have to work on fully understanding and accepting people of the nonconforming sexual orientations and gender identities as can be seen in Sadie’s recent letter to the President Obama.

In contrast to the type of environment that the United States creates, the atmosphere in my home country, Korea, is that of secrecy and absolute contempt from the public once one declares to be not straight. In 2000, a television figure and a comedian, Hong Suk Chun, came out of the closet, declaring to be gay. General public’s response to this coming out was extremely vile and rejecting. Undoubtedly, Mr.Hong disappeared from the television channels and went into seclusion. Most of his friends had left him and watched from distance. Moreover, he was to be between jobs and barely get by for the next three years.

I feel like I am slowly learning more and more about the people of nonconforming gender identities. I hope that at the end, I will be able to understand them as much as possible and further help them get across their messages all around the world, making the world more equal and human.

Thank you so much for reading :)