At the intersections, I\u2019ve been told I have to choose one identity<\/p>\n\n \n\n
When I asked my white gay partner how he understood the dynamics of our interracial relationship, he replied, \u201cwell, you\u2019re different, but you\u2019re not the help.\u201d\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAs a visibly brown, queer and first generation Filipino immigrant with a French name, I was curious about how he felt about dating someone from a different ethno-cultural background \u2014 someone who is typically cast into service industry or domestic worker roles.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nOften viewed as an ethnically ambiguous brown person, when I tell people about my Filipino identity, I find that I am often stereotyped as a hard-working, compliant and resilient model minority destined to work at the nearest Tim Hortons. And the complexity of my identity doesn\u2019t end there: I am also a person of faith from the Latter-Day Saint (Mormon) community and I also identify on the asexual spectrum, or to use the common moniker, ace. I\u2019m demisexual, which means I am a person who does not experience sexual attraction unless I form a strong emotional connection.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nDue to my several intersecting identities, I experience stigma and marginalization in many ways.\r\n\r\nClassism and racism are prevalent in the queer community, and they affect the way we find partners. Although my partner apologized, saying he wasn\u2019t trying to be offensive, I couldn\u2019t help but wonder: if I was \u201cthe help,\u201d would that make me less desirable as his partner? Did my social position matter to him? Did my education, ethnicity and socio-economic situation really impact how I am desired by others?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAt the intersections of being both queer and Mormon, I have been told that I have to choose one identity or the other by associates, friends, leaders and even family at one point. I\u2019ve been told that I am too queer to be Mormon and too Mormon to be queer. I feel like an interloper, like I don\u2019t belong in either community \u2014 tolerated instead of welcomed, jeered at for wanting to nurture my spirituality along with my identity as an out, proud queer person. I became convinced that I would never be loved for who I truly am.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIt wasn\u2019t until I came across an \u201cIt Gets Better\u201d video from Brigham Young University that I realized I wasn\u2019t alone in this experience. As it turns out, there are many people in my faith community who honour, to varying degrees, their queer identity and their beliefs. This motivated me to seek counseling and guidance, through which I learned to embrace myself more fully. I finally felt validated \u2014 in this aspect of my identity, at least.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nI still struggle with the most prominent image of a gay man as someone who is very sexual and sexualized. As someone who identifies on the asexual spectrum, this is yet another aspect of my life where I don\u2019t fit in. According to the dominant culture, a majority of what is valued in gay culture seems to be based on looks or the pursuit of the next hookup, evidenced through the prevalence of gay hookup apps.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThere is hardly any space for guys who want to meet others and just talk. And when I am spoken to, some questions I have been asked were directly aimed at my ace experience: do you identify sexually as a plant? Do you envision reproducing yourself by splitting in half? Isn\u2019t asexuality just celibacy?<\/em>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAlthough I still face acephobia within the gay community, I\u2019ve also witnessed some positive change. While attending a gay men\u2019s health summit, I noticed a shift from use of the term \u201cmen who have sex with men\u201d (MSM) to \u201cguys who like guys\u201d (GLG) to describe the larger community. This new term acknowledges both the romantic aspect of queerness and affirms the experiences of those who do not always experience sexual attraction.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nMy queer identity is composed of inextricably racial, spiritual and asexual elements. It is bound to and wound into the roots of the queer liberation movement, nourished by the notion that \u201cno one is free until we are all free.\u201d There are others who, just like me, are looking for a place where they can exist as they are. After all, to be queer is to defy that which is considered the norm, is it not?<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At the intersections, I\u2019ve been told I have to choose one identity<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":256,"featured_media":108637,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editorial_slug":"4","_editorial_slug":"","exclude_from_latest_block":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,4,2],"contributors":[706,710],"topic":[159,78],"clients":[],"series":[],"timeliness":[],"editorial_format":[25,34],"type-of-work":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107992"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/256"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107992"},{"taxonomy":"contributors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributors?post=107992"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=107992"},{"taxonomy":"clients","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/clients?post=107992"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=107992"},{"taxonomy":"timeliness","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/timeliness?post=107992"},{"taxonomy":"editorial_format","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/editorial_format?post=107992"},{"taxonomy":"type-of-work","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type-of-work?post=107992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}