Giving Ourselves Permission to Be

Boonmee Yang

Roseville, Minnesota | Hmong

Before the internet, I genuinely believed I was the only gay Hmong boy in the entire Midwest. Gays existed in big cities like LA, San Francisco, Chicago, and New York City, but not here. Not in the Twin Cities. After I succumbed to this lonely belief, my life became like the fists in the photo: holding onto a tense secret and closed off. This loneliness was different from the loneliness of being one of few Asian students at my all-white high school. Outside of school, I knew where to find other Hmong kids, but not queer Hmong kids. This loneliness had a hunger that began chewing at my core identity, which encompassed everything from being Hmong, American, Christian. Desperate to conform to societal and religious norms, I spent countless nights praying for God to miraculously zap me with a bolt of lightning that would turn me straight. Make me find girls attractive, I’d pray, so I can be and feel like all the other boys. Be accepted. Feel normal. Feel less lonely.

But lightning never struck.

Despite plenty of rainstorms raging over my house (and within myself) throughout middle to high school, my prayers never got me closer to where I needed to be. My attraction for boys only grew, as did the shame and self-hate. Self-hate got exhausting. I began praying for self-acceptance instead.

That made a difference.

Slowly I began to embrace and accept what made me different from other boys. I began appreciating the perspective I’d gained. Being different had allowed me to empathize with other marginalized communities: women in the church, society, within the Hmong community, people of color in white America, and LGBTQ people like me. Loneliness turned to activism and advocacy against oppressive systems that create fear, self-doubt and hate in people born the way they are. People like me. Young queer Hmong boys like me who only wanted to belong.

Within the Twin Cities, we’ve seen wonderful community groups and organizations, such as the now defunct SOY (Shades of Yellow), rise up to meet the needs of Asian LGBTQ members and embolden their identities. But on the journey to accept myself, I also discovered that spending so many years trying to re-carve my innermost being left me with residual feelings of shame that still require deconstructing. Though I’ve since come out, I still get uncomfortable holding my partner’s hand around the cities here, or even when we’re in Castro, San Francisco. To this point, Alan Paton strikes it head-on in one of my favorite novels, “Too Late the Phalarope”, “When a deep injury is done to us, we never recover until we forgive.” While gaining self-acceptance was the first step to healthy living after decades of self-hate, I’ve been working on self-forgiveness for an even more enriched life that the 15-year-old me in the photo deserves.

For those seeking self-acceptance and forgiveness, or to belong, know you are not alone. Send out your satellite calls. We are listening.

#MinneAsianStories Series