A podcast about pregnancy and drug use, Native people and tribal sovereignty. Though our activism is often obscured from mainstream consciousness, Asian and Pacific American APA women, transgender, and gender nonconforming people have been at the forefront of movements for survivor advocacy, LGBTQ liberation , bodily autonomy , and sex positivity. News is spotlighting APA activists throughout history and today who have been on the front lines in the ongoing fight for gender justice.
Bhattacharjee moved to the United States for college and began organizing around anti-imperialism on campus, and dropped out of school to focus on community organizing.
Bhattacharjee served as the first executive director of CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities, a grassroots coalition organizing across low-income and working-class Asian immigrant communities also founded in New York City in the late s. Chung relocated to San Francisco a year later to attend college and has been based there ever since.
She began her transition in the early s after graduating from college, while working as a court interpreter in Santa Clara County, but was let go from her job after she began to appear more feminine. This led to a difficult period when she engaged in survival sex work, self-medicating her depression with drug use, and dealt with temporary homelessness.
In , Chung tested positive for HIV, and in , she was stabbed during a sexual assault. Soon after the violent attack, which led to a reconciliation with her family who had cast her out for coming out as trans, Chung began working as an HIV test counselor at Ferguson Place , a residential treatment facility for people with HIV, and later as a caseworker for a homeless housing program.
