Kathy Tu had no time to be queer.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be, but she was just already too occupied with being marginalized as a Taiwanese-American and as a woman in the United States – now she had to deal with this too? “I can’t be queer, because I have too much going on,” she said.
Nevertheless, she was queer. There was no getting around that, even if her mother couldn’t see it; Tu had to come out to her three times before it finally stuck.
Many queer women of color face this issue daily. How can you be a person of color and a woman and queer all at the same time? No one has enough time to attend all those protests.
That’s where the podcast Nancy comes in.
Tu teamed up with another LGBT Asian-American named Tobin Low to discuss the nuances of being a queer Asian-American in the US today. They discuss the good (having supportive communities), the painful (being conflicted about their identities, having to deal with Asian stereotypes), and the just plain interesting (like Asian tops in porn videos).
Even people who aren’t Asian-American will relate to the podcast. “Nancy is an LGBTQ-themed show about how we define ourselves and the journey we take to get there,” say Tu and Low. Every queer woman, of color or not, has had to wrestle with her identity. That’s a lifelong journey. And Nancy is here to help you through it.
Both Tu and Low are new to podcasting, but they are experts at running radios behind the scenes. As a child, Low attended circus camp (there’s a conversation-starter) and was a professional cellist before working as a producer at WYNC Studios. You know WYNC from podcasts like 2 Dope Queens, RadioLab, Freakonomics Radio and Sooo Many White Guys.
Tu worked as a producer for podcasts like The Memory Palace and Masterpiece Studio, but this is her first real time in the spotlight. “She wants it noted that this whole hosting thing makes her very uncomfortable, but she’s leaning the eff in,” says the official website.
Check out the first episodes for yourself.
