Crystal Jang

http://ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=69279

"Sometimes, our perspective as the API LGBT community is often not heard," said Jang, using the acronym for Asian Pacific Islander.

"I came to give feedback to make sure it is all included.""I want to make sure this part of my history is heard," said Jang.

http://bayareareporter.net/pride/article.php?sec=pride&article=153

"I came out among white lesbians, because that's who accepted you," she said. "It was an adventurous time, but I couldn't find anyone who represented me."

@APIENC: Guess who's next!? Crystal Jang! #WikiAPA#dragonfruit

One of the few LGBTQ documentaries to focus on Asian American LGBTQ families, four longtime Asian American gay and lesbian couples speak out on marriage and Marriage Equality in the face of California’s virulent Proposition 8 campaign. Narrating stories and experiences that personalize these issues for general audiences, they speak of life and love and the challenges they face under Prop 8, the U.S. federal Defense of Marriage Act, and immigration laws that continue to devastate LGBTQ bi-national families. Families include Prop 8 litigants, Stuart Gaffney and John Lewis, whereby Gaffney’s parents were one of the earliest Chinese Caucasian interracial couples to marry in California soon after the landmark 1948 Perez v. Sharp ruling, overturning California’s anti-miscegenation laws; and Filipina/o bi-national couple, Shirley Tan and Jay Mercado, whereby Tan is facing the threat of deportation which will break up their family of 27 years and separate her from her partner and their twin teenage sons. Other families include Asian Pacific Islander Queer Women Transgender Coalition (APIQWTC) co-founder Crystal Jang and Sydney Yeong, and longtime Japantown residents and restauranteur Kenneth Kaji and Ryoji Imaizumi, as they recount the challenges faced by LGBTQ families with children, and senior LGBTQ couples.

Crystal Jang was born in San Francisco on November 15, 1946 to Bruce and Elaine Jang. Her parents are third generation Chinese-American, making her a fourth generation Chinese-American and a third generation San Franciscan. She came out at age 13 in 1961 when she fell in love with a girl in ninth grade. This experience planted the seeds for the organizations she would later go on to co-found, Older Asian Sisters in Solidarity and Asian Pacific Islander Queer Women and Transgender Community. In 2013, she won APIQTWC’s Phoenix Award and was asked to serve as a community grand marshal in San Francisco’s Pride Parade.

Before co-founding two organizations, Jang participated in the anti-war and feminist movement of the 1970s. She also did a lot of work in youth advocacy. She was the first Asian Pacific Islander LGBTQ-identified teacher in the San Francisco public school system. She served as the middle school coordinator for Sexual Minority Youth and Families and helped to design and execute trainings that educated staff members on issues that affected LGBTQ youth and families in schools. She was also a part of coordinating a Transgender 101 workshop for staff in the San Francisco Unified School District.