“Fear is the real virus.”

“I filled out the census form the other day. I ticked bisexual. I felt very warm because there is this option for sexuality and it’s great.”

“Do you really know yourself? Are you yourself, or are you just a projection of others?”

“The past year has been a particularly difficult time for the Chinese queer community, because we may face racial discrimination and LGBTQ+ discrimination. I hope people will continue to pay attention to and support Queer China UK, and that we will create a more equal and diverse society together.”

“Especially during COVID-19, as an Asian or a Chinese, we are afraid. If we wear a mask, we will walk with our heads down. We avoid having eye contact with others. When we buy stuff, we are afraid, and we are afraid to wear gloves and we try to leave the shop as fast as we can. A lot of times, our ethnicity, gender, and sexuality influences the way we walk; we talk or act in our everyday life. How we use a public space or private space.”

“An old lady who lived upstairs. Everyday, she would sit here reading while smoking. I think it's very good. If I can do this in the future, I'll be OK, and it's very good and very chill.”

“The same day, myself and 2 other tomboys (from Hong Kong), 3 of us got attacked. I got a left hook right in the face. That’s why I think you should learn self-defence just to protect yourself and your loved ones.”

“If you look at history of all the pandemic, like Spanish flu, SARS, H5N1, Mers, even HIV, these are diseases where they are zoonosis, so it’s transfer from animals to humans. If we continue to eat them and destroy their habitat. The link between us and them is going to be forever close.”

“My name is Nat, I am a furniture designer, a maker and an artist based in London. I label myself as non-binary and pansexual.”

“I want to strive hard for my girlfriend.”

“I want to study sociology as well, just to understand the world around me. Why society works in the way it does, it gets increasingly as well now with corona virus and anti-Asian. It’s just so much happening in the world right now.”

“If you have a very overall thought about your goals in life, you will know more clearly about how to do the things you are doing now.”

“Maybe we should take a closer look at what we young people are thinking in our minds when we are dealing with problems and have more introspection.”

“Asexuality: it can be difficult to claim it, as Asians are often desexualised and I do support sexual liberation for other people and queers, so it can feel difficult to feel like I can claim it in that sense, without feeling like my existence kind of contributes to stereotypes about Asians or goes against the motives of queer liberation... Which I guess is a problem for asexuals in general but even more when you're a race that is often desexualised.”

“My animation got censored and my account deleted because I posted it on Chinese social media, despite the fact that I actually pixelated it, they still get my project censored, it makes me feel like there’s less opportunities back home.”

“In Singapore there’s a provision called Section 377a, which criminalises sex between gay men, whether they are consented or not. I thought that was very unjust. I told my law school interviewers that I wanted to get it repealed, or struck down. And they said ‘haha, good luck with that.’ That’s one of the main reasons I wanted to become a lawyer.”