Increasingly, I find that I'd much rather talk about queerness than write about it. I've yet feel comfortable enough with my words to trust how they frame, limit, and structure my experience. I don't yet notice the experiences for which I have words and those for which I don't. I also wonder how adeptly I can to tease out my sexuality anyway, how well I can place it at center, since my particular queerness has had everything to do with my Asianness and uppermiddleclassness and youth. Again, I've yet to learn how to discuss these weaves in tandem yet, but I will.

Living behind the Orange Curtain, I feel that my sexuality has grounded me outside society. I remember encountering lust during early childhood. I think his name was John, and he was in sixth grade. It seems like my desires have always been there; I simply did not acknowledge them, at first, as particularly interesting or, more tellingly, substantial enough to construct a name, a category, or identity around. My identity remained based in far more conventional structures: although I knew I liked boys, I still expected to become a successful heterosexual doctor, find a dutiful Asian bride, and have an obscene number of children. Sexual orientation, unlike money, racial authenticity, and status, had yet to become a foundation upon which my life rested. Masculinity and sexuality had yet to emerge as an issue.

Gradually, I began to realize that my peers were treating me differently. I wish there was a fresh way to describe alienation, how painful it is to feel like an absolute freak, how name-calling and insults cannot be dismissed as "teasing, " how children relish in making people suffer, but such coming-of-age melodramas become trite, even laughable. I remember them mocking me for innocent hand gestures; I remember beginning to watch myself neurotically for any action that they might construe as effeminate; I remember violence; I remember feeling stiff and stale, like granite, icy, numb, each encounter, each slur and slap laying the blocks, smoothing the mortar of my new, emerging self. From behind the rising walls, I watched them becoming couples and realized that I could never have that easy way, that I could never commune with others without sadness.

My parents only complicated the matter. As traditional Asians, they demanded that I, the eldest son, serve as the tantamount heterosexual, a role model for my brothers, the carrier of the potent seed that would foster the next Chiu generation. Soon I learned that the identity they had built for me not only stood on wealth and cultural and familial loyalties, but around virility and manliness as well. I had been obedient for my entire life, willing to fulfill every expectation. Now I faced disownment. I was terrified; I had lost my sense of direction, false or otherwise. As I grew aware of my Otherness, I began to see my life as a series of illusions. My prospects dissolved, and from these mirages emerged barriers, bastions I had never recognized.

Because what I had always considered natural was now wrong, I was framed as the unacceptable, the deviant. Silently,  insidiously, the world had reified a Self for me, cemented my most intimate and meaningful desires into an identity of Pervert. It had warped me into a suffocating, totalizing essence, pinned me with the girders of weakness, monstros-ity, and leprosy that supported their dichotomous construction of Homosexual. I couldn't let myself stay a freak, so I decided I didn't know who I really was and attempted to redefine myself. First I went ascetic, soaking myself in Buddhism to extinguish my desires, to tear down the source of my aberrant nature. My peers, however, would not let me go so easily. Seeing as they had already decided that my sex-uality was my self, I then decided to seek solace with fellow perverts. So, I came out.

Coming out, I was told, would solve all of my problems. Sure, there would still be the leering, the homophobic slurs, and all that, but I would at least be "proud" of my sexual preference; I would "stand up and be counted." In reality, my momentous coming out was anti-climactic and disappointing. I expected that by telling people that I was gay I would metamorphose into a braver, stronger being. I didn't. To a certain extent, I never rested deeply in the closet anyway; because of my "flamboyance, " my private and public lives never seemed genuinely partitioned or obscured from one another. For me, at least, the closet emerged as another strange edifice, another harsh, warped, and dichotomous lens through which to understand myself.

Consequently I returned to my original foundations, plunging into schoolwork to redeem myself through academic excellence. Still miserable, I turned to extracurricular activities and community service, trying to erect an identity in a facade of social responsibility and activism. I found myself searching for the approval of others. Their praise of my right image, my unperverted, correctly structured image-my stellar transcript, my hours of community service, my ability to blow into a flute and scratch out a few greeting card poems-reassured me of my worth. Despite the rigidity of my A-student identity, I still felt stale and numb, dizzy and nauseous, my body floating in black and crimson. My life was nothing but a series of unstable illusions, shadows that consumed and rejected me, a society that told me that, beneath any self I pieced together, my sexuality made me essentially perverse and nothing more.

I reject these ideas. As Foucault writes, queerness represents a constructed, implanted perversity. People see my sexuality as the defining aspect of my persona. They see it as the sum product of my past and the determining factor of my future. Everywhere people limit me in ways far more insidious than stereotyping or anti-gay legislation. Discrimination against gays and lesbians is not simply a homophobic don't ask don't tell policy: in the contemporary consciousness, homophobia builds queerness into a monolith. With queer individuals reduced to nothing but absolutely, impregnably Queer, dehumanization becomes almost inevitable. There are the obvious examples: the gay bashers, the skinhead neo-Nazis, Jesse Helms, those who decry us as Satanic. Yet with the "gay-friendly" we become perverse too, metamorphosing from devils to ABBA-loving fashion freaks. Even queers sometimes yell too thoughtlessly for gay pride, as if having a sexual preference is something of which to be proud. Sexuality is not an accomplishment; it is not something that reveals who you are; it is not all that you are: it exists as a strand, one interwoven into all the other facets of Self .

What I want is gay dignity and freedom. I want to integrate my sexuality with all the other weaves of my self: burn any architectural plans that mount my gayness above my race, ethnicity, and age. In fact, I'd like to trash any designs on fixing my identity at all. I want for people not to trap me, totalize me in predetermined roles and lifestyles, to tell me that I have to resolve my deviance when they have constructed it for me. With horror, I know that I've lived my sexuality with relative ease, that I've passed through high school relatively unbruised , that I've always been able to wrap my Harvard successes around me like a shawl and beat my enemies back with my résumé. Still I am tired of fearing that I might lose my parents' support and never being able to return home after college. I am tired of wondering if a potential employer finds me too effeminate or if I need to carry mace on-campus. I am tired of having my sexuality dominate me, suffocate me, be my persona.

Of course, I certainly can't take it for granted either. For many years, I've distanced myself from certain queers, naming drag queens, transsexuals, and flaming gay activists as freaks or Other to bolster my sense of normalcy. Only recently did I become a crusading warrior princess myself. Gradually, I am coming to embrace the identity of Homosexual, the identity built so rigidly around my desire and so oppressive to my sense of self, and encourage others to do the same. Screw normalcy. Only through reappropriating this artificial category of Queerness we can name ourselves as a community. Only through political mobilization can we reclaim what it means to live Gay, bring our multiplicity as individuals to light, and achieve equity in our lives. Coming out means avowal, a desperately needed acknowledgment of yourself and your peers and a commitment to fight for them: not necessarily a collision of the theoretically public and private. Queers need to proclaim their supposedly perverse subculture, a subculture borne in the oppression, resistance, and struggle within and between the queer and straight communities. We must seek equity through visibility. Moreover, while our identities may remain socially constructed, their fabrication does not make them any less meaningful or real. Perhaps because I can afford to, I have learned to take pleasure in deviance, in flaunting my self; in reveling in sexual experiences; in passing as a girl or heterosexual boy. Certainly my experiences prove as legitimate as the construction of Straightness. We need to establish queerness as just as normal and "unnatural" as Heterosexual convention. We must understand that barbie doll cheerleader is just as contrived as the diesel dyke, that the muscle-bound jock is as much of a construct as the leather queen. Only after achieving a visible place in society and showing Straights how society has fabricated their identities as well will queers move from the deviant to the normal, from the periphery to the center.

So in looking toward my activism at Harvard, I perceive two emerging strands. First, I will continue to work on the numerous issues that I've pursued during high school because in doing so I do justice to all aspects of my self and serve all of my communities. Beyond my attempt to unify and integrate the weaves of my life, I would, however, like to become more present in the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender community, particularly since my home life and county of residence have largely curtailed my efforts. Despite the importance of the cause, I would definitely like to move beyond A.I.D.S. activism and attack broader social justice issues on sexuality that receive less attention. My human rights work promises to redouble in the area of sexuality as the international human rights community grows increasingly aware of the torture and oppression of sexual minorities worldwide. Moreover, I would also like to study and pursue the creation of alliances within queer communities, in terms of varying racial-ethnic and gender groups, and with heterosexual communities as well. Specifically, however, I feel drawn to the study and teaching of identity politics, particularly in how the social discourse constructs Homo and Hetero-sexuals. I feel a need to collapse the shaky dichotomy between Straights and Freaks, to demolish the structures we've erected to define ourselves. Understanding my queerness has become a process, a process of deciding that my difference will no longer isolate, relegate, or alienate me. Instead, it will build me a space from which I can expose the perversity in calling someone perverse.

Comments by Admissions Officers who Assisted with the Course Development

One admissions officer called it a "work of art, " and another described it as "the stuff of graduate research." One admissions officer offered a warning to applicants, though. "This is not the conversational style that I recommend that most applicants use, because too often students at this stage sound pretentious and awkward if they try to go beyond a simple style." Another felt it very important to stress that a topic does not need to be this grandiose, personal, or revealing to be effective. "True, these topics often tug at the heartstrings and therefore get more notice . . . but it's worth mentioning that you don't need to be a gay Asian activist to get noticed." The combination of such a deeply personal topic, the depth of insight, and the ability to articulate such a breadth of thought is impressive.

點評：

作者勇敢地和我們分享了一段他自己的個人隱私，作為一名同性戀者，他一開始無法接受自己喜歡男生這個事實，但對于男生自己又有一種莫名的沖動，這使得作者不得不重新去審視這個問題，但作者越是審視問題就越是害怕去面對，害怕面對家人、朋友甚至是整個社會，但其實作者更害怕面對的是他自己。為了逃避，作者選擇潛心修道，企圖用佛教來洗滌自己齷齪的私欲和消除自己性向異常的劣根。除此之外，作者還試圖通過在學校獲取優異的成績還有參加各種各樣的社團活動來充實自己的人生，希望可以幫助自己樹立一個正面的形象。但是慢慢地作者發現這樣的生活并不是自己想要的，自己已經迷失了自我，分不清方向，于是作者開始憂心、痛苦甚至迷茫。在極度痛苦的時刻，作者開始反思并進行一個重新定位。作者意識到導致自己如此痛苦的一個根本原因是社會對于同性戀者的歧視。由此而引發了作者對于同性戀者人權問題的深思，并立意要為同性戀者的人權維護運動做出貢獻。

這篇文章篇幅較長，感情也錯綜復雜，但形象塑造比較鮮明。作為讀者，你會隨著作者心理的變化而產生感情變化，可以說，這篇文章成功地做到了讓讀者憂作者之所憂，想作者之所想，而且作者的描述是如此的扣人心弦，讓人對同性戀者產生了憐憫之情，同時也讓人對于當今有關人權問題的法律法規產生了深思。

但同時這種寫作方法和方式是比較危險的，稍有不慎就會讓人覺得你有為了博取同情或為了引人注目從而突出自己而講述一個悲劇的故事的嫌疑，如果是這樣你非但不能得到任何加分反而會引起別人的反感。這樣讀者雖感受到作者的嚴重困窘，但不會給與憐憫。

譯文：

漸漸地，我發現相比起以寫的方式我更愿意以說的方式來談論同性戀。雖然我相信我的這些言論會定格、限制甚至改變我日后的生活，但我對于自己所說的并沒有感覺到一絲的不自然。而對于一些我有所感悟的和那些我沒有感悟的經歷我卻不以為然。由于我的同性戀傾向會直接影響到我身為一名亞洲上層階級的年輕人的身份，我也想知道自己究竟能如何巧妙地道出自己性取向異于常人這個事實和如何能較好地使人接受。此外，我也嘗試著去學習如何有條理地與人討論這其中錯綜復雜的關系，但是我相信我可以做到。

生活在這橙色門簾背后，我感覺到我異于常人的性取向已經完全把我置身于正常的社會生活以外。記得我年幼時曾經有過性沖動的對象。而他的名字叫約翰，是六年級的學生。我似乎能時常感覺到自己那種強烈的欲望。剛開始我并不覺得這是我對某人、某種人或某種性別的人有著特別興趣的象征。而我的性取向的確偏離正常：雖然我知道自己是喜歡男生，但是我仍然希望自己可以成為一名出色的異性戀的學者，找一個嫻熟的亞洲新娘，然后有很多很多的小孩。性取向不象金錢、種族和身份，它是人的一生的基石。因此性別和性取向往往能成為一個話題。

漸漸地，我開始意識到我身邊的同齡人都在以一種不同的方式對待我。我希望有一種新的說法來形容疏遠，被人當成是怪物的感覺是多么的難受，這種恥笑和侮辱又怎能不叫做是奚落，使別人受苦的孩子心理是一種怎樣的滋味呢，但是這些成年人的情節劇漸漸變得過時甚至可以說可笑。我記得他們曾因為我的一些無意識的手勢而嘲笑我；我記得自己逐漸地也神經質地對著鏡子看著自己，試圖分析著被他們認為是女人氣的動作；我記得我曾為此和他們打架；我記得每一次遭遇辱罵或者打架倒地之后拍去身上的塵埃而重拾全新自我時的感覺是如此的難受，僵硬和冰冷，完全失去知覺。從緩緩建起的高墻后我看到他們成群結隊，那時我就意識到我以后的路都不會走得那么容易，而我也不再可能和別人毫無保留地互吐心聲了。

而我的父母只會把事情弄得更加復雜。作為傳統的亞洲人，他們希望我作為家里的長子可以為弟弟們樹立一個好榜樣，做一個真真正正的男子漢，傳宗接代，延續我們徐家的香火。不久我意識到他們為我所樹立的形象不僅是在財富和文化家族信仰上，而且同時也在男性的特征上。我的一生都循規蹈矩，希望可以不辜負每一個人的期望。現在我卻不這樣認為了。我非常的害怕；我迷失了方向，對錯與否我并不清楚。當我意識到我是異于常人的時候，我就開始把我的一生看作是有一系列的幻想所組成的。我的前途一片渺茫，而從這些海市蜃樓里萌發的就只有我從來都不曾意識到的屏障和堡壘。

因為以前我一直覺得是很自然的事情現在被發現是錯誤的，所以我被定義為不可接受的和不正常的。而這個世界無聲無息地并且陰險地把我的本質給具體化了，并且把我最內心的和最有意義的愿望和反常這樣一個定義給連接在一起了。它使我誤入歧途，并將我釘在用軟弱、畸形和麻瘋病所筑成的支架上從而來支持他們在同性戀上的構筑。我不能讓自己成為一個怪物，所以我決定忘記自己究竟是誰同時也盡力地重新塑造全新的一個自我。首先我潛心修道，用佛教來洗滌我的私欲和消除我性向異常的劣根。然而我身邊的同齡人并不會那么容易就放過我。看到他們已經形成了一個定向的思維覺得我的性取向是不正常的，于是我決定在我的同性戀伙伴們尋求安慰。就這樣，我走出來了。

別人告訴我只要走出來了就可以解決一切問題。當然，還是會有歧視的目光，辱罵的聲音，一切一切，但是最起碼我走出來了我可以以我自己的性取向為豪；我可以站起來并且自己的存在是那么的有價值。但事實上，這次意義重大的出走，最后還是草草地結束了，讓人很失望。我還期望可以通過告訴別人我是個同性戀這個事實來使自己變得更加勇敢和更加堅強。但是我發現自己做不到。從某種意義上說，我從未找到真正屬于自己的私人空間；而因為我內心的狂野使得我的公眾生活和私人生活始終無法真正的分離開，兩者始終還是那么的模糊不清。對于我來說，這個私人空間只是另一所陌生的高樓大廈，是另一個苛刻的同樣帶有偏見的透鏡，透過它來了解我自己。

結果我又回到原來的樣子，投入到校園生活中，在學習中通過獲得優異的成績來重新肯定自己。但令人可悲的是，我參加學校里面各種各樣的課外活動和社團活動，試圖努力去樹立起一種積極向上的有社會責任心的正面形象。我發現自己在尋求他人的認同。別人對我積極向上、身心健康的形象， 優異的學習成績，社區服務的工作以及吹長笛的技能都給與了贊揚，而我就通過他們的贊揚還有他們給我寫的賀卡上所寫的贊揚的詩歌來給與自己自我的肯定。雖然我在學校獲得了優異的成績，但我仍然感覺到內心的麻木、疲倦、迷亂甚至厭惡之感，我感覺到自己在黑暗中漂浮不定。我的生活除了一些有的沒的的幻想和陰影之外什么都沒有，而這些幻想和陰影正一步步地把我吞噬和否決。這個社會告訴我，在我所拼湊的零碎的那個自我之下，我的性取向已經完全使我變得不正常，變得什么也不是了。

我否認這樣的想法。就像Foucault所寫的，同性戀從本質上就意味著成形的已被灌輸了的反常。人們把我的性取向和我的人格等同了。他們把它看成是我的過去的一個綜述和我未來的一個決定因素。到處的人們看我的眼光和對待我的方式比反同性戀的法規還來的陰險惡毒。對男同性戀和女同性戀者的歧視不是簡單的對同性戀的恐懼，不要問我也不要和我說法律：在當代人的意識中，對同性戀的恐懼和厭惡之情已經可以做成一個雕塑了。隨著人們對同性戀者的趕盡殺絕，非人性化就變得那么的顯而易見。有很多很明顯的例子：同性戀襲擊者，包括平頭裝的neo-Nazis和海爾姆斯，還有稱我們是惡魔的人們。但是在一些對同性戀友好的人們的眼里我們同樣也是齷齪和不正當的，只是從惡魔的稱號轉為時髦的怪物。甚至有些同性戀者有時會高呼同性戀萬歲，就像他們以自己的性取向而自豪。但性取向并不是一件完成的作品，它并不能揭示你是誰更不是你的全部：它只是一條繩索，將體現自我的其它因素編織在一起。

我想要的是作為同性戀者的尊嚴和自由。我想把性與編織我人生的其它因素緊緊地結合在一起：我要焚燒阻礙我的條條框框，使同性戀凌駕于種族、家族、和年齡之上。實事上，我正想要拋棄一些把我定格的想法。我希望人們不要陷害或算計我，不要把我定死在一個固定的角色和生活方式里，我希望他們不要告訴我，我必須糾正我的不正常的行為，而他們卻沒有想過這個不正常是他們強加給我的。帶著恐懼，我知道我已經能相對輕松地看待我的性取向，我幾乎能不受傷害地度過我的高中時代，而且我總能成功地用在哈佛取得的成功把自己外包起來，用我這段成功的經歷去擊敗我的對手。當然我也害怕我的父母不支持我，害怕大學畢業后就回不了家了。我對于自己總是擔心雇主會發現我過于女人氣，或是總是想著在校園里走動時要不要帶著噴霧催淚器護身這些想法感到疲憊。我也非常厭倦我的性取向支配著我的生活，讓我透不過氣，成了我的偽裝人格這個事實。

當然，我同樣不會覺得這是理所當然的。這些年來，我都與那些同性戀者、反對同性戀的激進分子以及支持我找回正確的性取向的人們保持距離。直到現在我才成為了一個真正的改革運動的戰斗公主。漸漸地，我開始接受我是同性戀這個事實，其實這個事實已經牢牢地刻在我的意愿中，只是這也給我的內心形成了很大的壓力，同時我也鼓勵其他同性戀者能向我一樣接受這個事實。只有通過對自己重新定位，我們才能將自己稱為一個團體。只有通過政治上的動員，我們才能呼吁，作為同性戀者活著意味著什么，同性戀也是個人燃燒自己的一種方式，只有呼吁才能在現實生活中實現我們的平等對待。從誤區走出來就必須向世人宣誓，這是對你自己、你的同性戀伙伴以及你為他們所做的承諾的肯定：而無需在理論上的公眾生活與私人生活上糾纏不清。同性戀者們需要宣布他們所支持的人們所謂不正常的亞文化，這種亞文化產生于壓迫、反抗和同性戀者與公眾群體之間的斗爭。我們必須尋求可看得見的公平對待。而且就算同性戀的行為被社會上的人給歪曲了，這些歪曲的定義并不可以使得同性戀者的存在變得卑微和不真實。這或許是因為我可以承受得起壓力，我已經試著在這些違規行為中偷樂并為此炫耀著自己，沉浸在這些被認為是不正當的性樂趣當中，并且以女生的身份或是男生的身份過活，這個我并不在意。事實證明了我的這些行為是合法的。但是我們需要把同性戀的形象給樹立起來，讓人們覺得同性戀和異性戀一樣都是一種正常的行為。只有將同性戀和異性戀給等同起來了，同性戀者才能從不正常恢復到正常，從外圍返回到社會的中心。

因此展望未來我在哈佛的校園生活，我找到了可以鞭策我的兩條準則。首先，我會繼續我在高中時的各項研究，因為只有這樣我才能對自己負責和對我們這個群體負責。除了這些努力之外，然而我更希望能在同性戀、雙性戀等群體貢獻自己的一分力量，因為以前的我在家里若要從事這方面的工作總遭到家里人的反對。雖然我知道這份事業的重要性，但是我不僅僅會同性戀者的愛滋病問題，但更多地我會在為同性戀者尋求公平對待方面下功夫，而這方面恰好是社會關注比較少的。由于國際人權組織越來越關注人們對同性戀者的歧視對同性戀者造成的影響諸如此類的問題，所以未來我在同性戀者人權方面的工作會逐漸加大和加深。而且我想去學習和在同性戀者群體當中根據他們的性別或種族來建立起屬于他們自己的聯盟團體，異性戀者也一樣。然而我對與性有關的法律法規的學習更感興趣，特別是研究社會應該如何正確的引述同性戀和異性戀。我覺得很有必要打破同性戀與異性戀的界限，從而推翻社會強加給我們的歪曲的定義。了解自己的同性戀傾向慢慢地就會變成一個可以改變自己命運的進程，這一命運的改寫所導致的差別在于我不會再被鼓勵和被疏遠。相反，我可以在我自己的世界里盡情放縱。

協助學校項目發展工作的錄取委員所給的評論：

一位錄取委員稱這是一件藝術品，而另一位就形容這是研究生研究項目的具體內容罷了。而又有一名錄取委員給了申請人如下的建議：這并非是我所推崇的寫作方式，因為很多時候當學生們想突出自我的時候，他們就會變得自命不凡甚至可以說迂腐。而另一個錄取委員就強調為了寫出優秀的文書并不需要描述得如此的宏大，如此地揭露個人的隱私。“的確，這些描述的環節由于涉及個人隱私所以比較扣人心弦，也因此比較受人注目，但是值得一提的是：不是只有亞洲的同性戀者這樣的一個特殊身份才能引起我們的注意的。”但是作者意味深長的個人描述以及清晰的自我表達能力是會給人留下很深刻的印象的。