Welcome to Gaysians!
By Gaysians Founder, Reeta Loi. June 2025
We’re back! In 2024 we took time out to take stock of 7 years of campaigning as an organisation and for me personally, a journey that began in 2006 when I was disowned by my family and went in search of community. We took time to heal, to gain our strength and to strategise for the work ahead of us.
We were founded in 2017 when I was a columnist at DIVA magazine, before joining GAY TIMES as Contributing Editor. Before this I had spent several years writing and speaking in the media anonymously. I had spent two decades living as a lesbian and was still to see myself reflected in the media, in the club and even online. This may sound inconceivable now, but the erasure back then was overwhelming.
During the winter of 2017/18 I travelled to India to work with activists and artists and marched at Mumbai Pride. At the time Section 377 was still in place, which criminalised homosexuality in India. The landmark victory in September 2018 with the successful removal of Section 377, was felt the world over by the Indian diaspora and beyond. It is an honour to have campaigned for this in the media and in government at such an important time in our history. I returned to India that winter and marched again at Mumbai Pride and the shift in energy through our shared liberation was truly magnificent! We had our own Gaysians celebration in London and it was a defining moment.
I had grown up in the UK under Section 28, which systematically removed all mention of LGBTQ+ lives from our education system from 1988 to 2003 in England and Wales and 2000 in Scotland. As well as this erasure of LGBTQ+ people in our education system, there was no inclusion of colonial history in our education either.
It wasn’t until I was in my late twenties, after years of searching that I found a blog post written by an anon Indian lesbian in Mumbai. Her story changed the course of my life, because it inspired me to share my own. I began writing about my experiences in the media because I’d had enough of not seeing myself reflected anywhere.
I am sharing this to illustrate how easily we are erased and also to remind us that it is not so long ago that we were not visible. I am also voicing myself and sharing my contributions because the erasure still continues today.
There is erasure each time a new tech platform is launched and is dominated by content that does not include us. There is erasure each time a law is passed to limit our ability to be ourselves and to access each other in the past, present or future. There is erasure each time we censor ourselves and do not share our voices, out of fear, shame or lack of belief in ourselves. There is erasure each time members of our community compete with each other to be validated by a world that will never give them what they seek, because what they seek can only be found within themselves. And there is erasure because many of us don’t make it. The levels of abuse and trauma that we have endured and are experiencing is beyond what many people realise and you are not alone.
This erasure is designed to make us forget who we are from one generation to the next. But we have to be stronger than that. We are stronger than that and our freedom threatens the very powers that oppress us. We have to fight together, side by side. For ourselves, for each other and for people we will never get to meet.
We have always existed and nowhere more in the world is this more prominent than in Asia, where historical sites that evidence our history still exist. Where we are a visible part of society. Where we have a third gender on our passports. Where being trans is an everyday part of our lived experience, mythology, storytelling and survival, dating back thousands of years. We belong here.
Gaysians works with organisations and charities to advise them on how to best serve us as people that have specific, nuanced experiences and often complex challenges navigating our culture, sexuality and gender identities in the diaspora. We have a wide range of partners, offering a broad scope of support including mental health, housing, sexual health, faith, trans and youth support. Our Resources section is a growing space that we’ve dedicated time to curate for you, please use this to access support.
As well as this, we work with the media to continue to push for positive visibility of Asian LGBTQ+ people, our rights and our stories. The Letters sections of the site is a space for members of the community to share open letters about the topics that matter to them most. This exists so that you can share your voice and spotlight what we as a small team do not have the lived experience to speak on. These letters are far reaching and can influence culture and policy. If you would like to submit a letter to us then please get in touch. We also have Interviews which we will be expanding on.
The very first iteration of gaysians.org promoted events and we are exploring this again. Meeting irl has never felt more important for us as a community. As an independent and unfunded organisation that chooses to maintain autonomy, we have decided not to set up as a CIC, which would restrict our campaigning work. Rather than access funding in exchange for censorship, we are exploring alternative routes.
While Gaysians is widely recognised as a success story, there have been challenges, largely with misogyny within our community. For this reason, we are dedicating this era of Gaysians to women, trans and non-binary Asians. We are centring our stories, art and wellbeing. We are doing this to fight the erasure that occurs within our community and outside it.
Ultimately, more than our identities it is our values that matter most. We experience generational trauma and the path to recovery and mental health is a large reason why Gaysians exists. I took time away from activism to heal and within the tough stuff, I’ve cultivated self-compassion and self-love that has fundamentally changed my relationship with myself. We need to take care of ourselves and learn to love ourselves before anything else. Or what is this all for?
This chapter of Gaysians is our Gaysiana era. This era is dedicated to queer women and non-binary and trans Asians. We celebrate you, we are you and we invite you to join us! While our resources exist for everyone, we will be spotlighting Gaysiana talent and stories as a priority for now.
We are happy to announce that we will now be operating as a pan-Asian organisation, to provide inclusion to all Asian LGBTQ+ people.
Keep an eye on our socials for more updates. We’re excited to share what we have planned to bring us together and share in kind, healing and joyful community.
With love,
Reeta x