“I think it is a big world that we’re living in and there are differences in experiences that people in different countries or communities have, depending on the stages of social movements they’re in. For example, here in Boston it is normalized that people value you as you and not only as individualized identities whether you are straight or gay, etc. But in China where I came from, I might be treated differently and I might have to face discrimination. It can be a whole different experience. Personally for me, without question, it is more comfortable to live here. But I recognize that there are just different stages that we need to go through. Right now we can form such a strong LGBTQ community here because we’ve faced a lot of discrimination before. In some ways if such obvious representation of unfairness doesn’t exist, people will naturally fall back to their own familiar backgrounds or life paths. Some other things might bother them instead. It might not be the LGBTQ community, but it could be race or disabilities or education level. I think people will always spend time and energy into something that bothers them the most. Without activism, we might fall back to where we were when we didn’t speak up about what matters to us.”
— May Liu (she/her), 26, cisgender female, lesbian.
