I remember one newspaper review of the book specifically pointed out my chapter and saying I was advocating for people to stay in the closet. What that review told me is that there’s a large idea of what it means to be gay in our country, and that idea is largely based on gay white male experiences and all other experiences are invalid.

A study looked at gay white men and Latino men and found that Latino men who come out in the traditional way that white people come out actually become less happy. They’re happier when they come out in much more subtle ways like bringing a boyfriend to family events, where nobody publicly says “I’m gay,” and no one says “this is my partner,” but that’s the implication.

I would be really surprised if Kim Chi’s mother didn’t know. But you have to understand that in Asian American culture, it’s a very interesting relationship with sexuality. It would be one thing if Asian parents had discussions about sex and love with their straight kids, but not talking about sexuality, whether you’re straight or gay, is an entirely common thing for Asian families. Asian kids don’t normally go around telling their parents, “Oh, I went on this date and this is how it’s going.” It’s more subtle. I think about my siblings and how they introduced their boyfriends and girlfriends to my mother. It wasn’t like they said, “Mom, I’m dating this person.” The person just one day showed up.

So I don’t think it’s fair to say Kim Chi is not living an authentic life if she hasn’t told her mother, because for the most part I think that she is living a very authentic life as the child of an Asian immigrant.

Kornhaber: It might not be tied to race, but I’d be interested in your thoughts on the virginity issue. She doesn’t seem particularly ashamed of being a virgin, and then the best moment of the finale was her turning down the Pit Crew.

Han: I think people will interpret that as being related to her being Asian. Because there are these stereotypes of Asian people being sexually naïve, sexually repressed. Someone once said to me, a long time ago when we were talking about HIV prevention efforts and the funding that wasn’t coming to gay Asian men, “Asian people don’t have sex.” I was really taken aback and made some really snotty comment, like, “You know, there are a billion Chinese people who disagree.”

So I don’t think [Kim Chi’s virginity] has as much to do with her being Asian per se as it does with her having internalized things about what it means to be Asian, what it means to be fat, what it means to be femme. When you’re constantly bombarded with personal ads and Grindr profiles specifically saying “no Asians,” it is a big hit to your sense of worth.

One drag queen told me that drag is like an armor, where she can go from being an ugly Asian boy to being a beautiful Asian woman. When marginalized groups look for social status and power they look at the areas that are open to them. And the stereotypes of Asian men being feminine work to their advantage in drag. But more importantly, they know it works to their advantage. They realize that this is one way that they can translate what is seen as negative into a positive in the same way that Kim Chi has done.