It was easier to come out as gay than to come out as Chinese

Not quite immediately, but eventually, I understood the inconsistency of that. What the hell was I doing? I was suppressing half of my heritage again, but this time the Scottish side. There was guilt building. Why wasn’t there room for both Dad and Mum in the lifeboat of my pride?

Loading

Authors will tell you the best way to disentangle a stumper is to write about it. So, I laid down the beginnings of a novel about a mixed-race family who were just like mine. The story, I hoped, would help articulate the liminal space I existed in, between races and cultures. I depicted my protagonist as a walking corpse because in that form he could defy his nature, be two things at once. In his case, alive and dead. It was a subversive idea, but I had to write him that way, as a multidimensional being – because that’s who I was.

When I finished the novel, I understood a little better what I had been struggling to articulate. Not my Chinese or Scottish heritage. Not the two races in their silos. I was looking for a way to explain how I was part of each, and both. I should have been coming out as a mixed-race person. It’s no small group to belong to. We exist in every town and city, in every state of the country, though we’re rarely counted.

Unfortunately, it takes a long and in-depth conversation to get all that out at a party, and I’m aware that Australians prefer to talk in terms of teams. Whose side are you on, Steve? What do you identify as? When you tell people about your background, they go looking for physical evidence.

The best I can do in that circumstance is try not to flinch while they inspect my face, my hair, my eyes. But what I would really like is for people to get beyond asking me about my heritage at all. Because asking is “othering”. It means you’ve identified me as different. And identifying one’s difference should be a journey of self-discovery. Not you telling me about my identity. Let me define it for myself.

First Name Second Name (UQP) by Steve MinOn, is out now.

Get the best of Sunday Life magazine delivered to your inbox every Sunday morning. Sign up here for our free newsletter.