By Inga Sorensen

Pauline Park (left) and Christine Lipat addressed the President's Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders during a hearing at New York University School of Law on Monday. (by Jake Price)

Two representatives of the gay Asian American and Pacific Islander community testified before a presidential commission Monday where they asked the panel to bolster the initiation of a "major federally-funded research project" to assess the myriad needs of the community.

The activists, representing a coalition of New York City and national gay Asian American and Pacific Islander organizations, appeared before the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, which held its Eastern Region Town Hall Hearing this week at New York University School of Law. The commission is charged with developing recommendations to give to the president on ways the federal government can help improve the quality of life of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. The video teleconference was broadcast to a handful of Northeast cities, including Washington, D.C.

"As Asian Pacific Americans, we need to recognize that barriers to accessing social services and to full participation in this society are based not only on race and ethnicity, but also homophobia and transgenderphobia," Christine Lipat of Kilawin Kolektibo, a Filipina gay and transgender collective based in New York, told the panel. "We, therefore, encourage this commission as well as API organizations to acknowledge the presence of LGBT people in our communities, including through the use of fully LGBT-inclusive language and imagery in all their communications; and we encourage API communities as a whole to appreciate the valuable contributions that LGBT people make in their communities of origin."

In her testimony, Pauline Park, who serves on the political committee of the Gay Asian and Pacific Islander Men of New York, urged the commission to recommend the inclusion of sexual minorities in all Asian and Pacific Islander-specific programs that are federally funded.

Speaking on behalf of the gay coalition — which includes the New York-based Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, South Asian Lesbian and Gay Association and the Audre Lorde Project, and the D.C.-based Asian and Pacific Islander Queers United for Action and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force — she also called for the official federal documentation of hate crimes and domestic violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Park, who co-founded the New York Association of Gender Rights Advocacy, also noted her advocacy of transgender rights in the Big Apple, telling commissioners, "I am leading a campaign for a transgender anti-discrimination bill currently pending in the New York City Council. If passed, the legislation would constitute the first major amendment to the city human rights ordinance since the addition of sexual orientation in 1987. As a transgendered Korean adoptee, I do not have the luxury of separating issues of sexuality and gender identity from those of race, ethnicity, national origin and citizenship status."

This was the second of four planned commission-community meetings nationwide. The first was held this summer in Los Angeles. The commission will deliver its first report to the president by the end of the year. The second report will be presented to the newly elected president in 2001.

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This article appeared in the issue of:
September 22, 2000