Gate gay definition
“But then this person that I met was like ‘No, that actually means ‘faggot,’” Dao continued. “I thought that bê đê meant all-encompassing LGBT,” Dao said, using the acronym to refer to lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender people. But in college, Dao learned that the term was actually derogatory. You don’t talk about sexuality.”īefore starting his transition, Dao used the word his mother taught him to come out as a lesbian to his family during his senior year of high school. “We were kind of conservative, but it’s common for Vietnamese families. “That’s the first Vietnamese word that I learned for anything that wasn’t ‘heterosexual,’” Dao said. He asked his mother if there was a word for “gay” in Vietnamese. As he started developing feelings for women, he became more aware of words for sexuality through websites like MySpace. But when he was going to high school in Garden Grove, California, where he was raised in a Vietnamese-speaking home, he identified as a lesbian. Today, Dao lives in Oakland and is transitioning from female to male. But I remember back then I was confused, so I was like ‘I guess you’re right, I guess I can’t,’” like girls, Dao said. “She was like ‘You’re not,’ ‘You don’t,’ and I could tell she was kind of struggling. “I was like, ‘What do you mean, no?’” Dao said. She stopped, looked at him, and said “No.” Lotus Dao remembers asking his mother at young age, “What if I like girls?”