#anws for some reason i always find stuff about them in english first

[jenniferchaulam]

/its always tumblr, ITS ALWAYS FUCKING TUMBLR when i search IN MY OWN LANGUAGE on literally any other site, people got stumped. Bác? Too old. Bạn? Too casual/disrespectful. people jest, like lets call them Mày (which is even More casual/disrespectful than Bạn, and most NBs are young, so there is no generation After them yet for them to consider a Older-Casual pronoun)

chanh? 10/10. lets call them limes its so perfect (Limes, because while Chanh can be translated to lemons, they arent the first thing people think off. Also lemons arent naturally grown here and are very expensive lol, Ive never tasted a natural lemon)

I am writing a story where one of the main characters is vietnamese-american and nonbinary. I myself am nonbinary, but I'm not asian and I know there are some western tropes around portraying asian characters as "genderless" (like robots etc). This character has a love interest but I also don't want any expressions of gender neutrality to be misconstrued as "desexualized" (as I believe that is another trope). What is some advice on how to make these aspects of my character work well without being disrespectful?

Nonbinary Vietnamese character, worried about (neutral = de-sexualized) tropes

A note that Vietnam is part of Southeast Asia, not East Asia! 

Obviously there are multiethnic Vietnamese people such as myself that are East and Southeast Asian, and Vietnamese people of East Asian (ethnic) origin - but Vietnam’s considered a Southeast Asian nation (here’s a link to the ASEAN’s page on Vietnam).

Speaking as a nonbinary Vietnamese person, I’d say go for it! I personally know many other Vietnamese nonbinary people, so the identity is definitely a sizable population of the queer Viet diaspora.

Clearly you’ve done research on dehumanizing tropes of characters of color, so I would just recommend scrolling through our “nonbinary” and “Vietnamese” tags.

If you want some resources from LGBT Viets specifically, I’d recommend checking out Viet Rainbow of Orange County, an organization founded by LGBT Vietnamese people based in Little Saigon.

[Content Warning for mentions of suicide and mental health issues]

According to the Trevor Project, many young queer Vietnamese-Americans struggle with mental health issues with as high as 60% LGBT Vietnamese youth not being “out” to their parents, and 31% contemplating suicide. I would tread carefully if this is a topic you plan on addressing in your story.

Something interesting I’ve stumbled across with regards to the nonbinary Vietnamese identity: according to the Asian American Writers Workshop, some people use “chanh” as a pronoun (combining the words for sister and brother). I personally don’t speak Vietnamese, but thought this was pretty neat!

Nonbinary Vietnamese readers, feel free to contribute any thoughts you have.

~ Mod Emme