On a quiet hillside corner in San Francisco's Chinatown last Friday, Mayor Daniel Lurie joined community members and city officials for the opening of a first-of-its-kind museum - world's first Chinese LGBTQ museum.
Hundreds of people cheered as rainbow ribbons were cut at the OUT Museum, the world's first Chinese LGBTQ museum. For many queer Chinese people in the diaspora, "OUT" means both coming out and the journey of leaving a place in search of safety, opportunity, or belonging.
Behind the museum is Xiangqi Chen, an artist and LGBTQ advocate who spent more than twenty years pushing for queer visibility in China before moving to the U.S. in 2023. For her, the museum's opening is not so much a victory but a starting point.
She says the need for a museum like this shows that the work is far from over.
For many in the Bay Area's Asian American LGBTQ community, Chen is already a familiar figure. Friends, activists, and longtime supporters turned out for the opening, including writer Helen Zia, who first met Chen more than ten years ago at the Shanghai Lesbian Center she founded.
"Xiangxi is, I have to say, one of the most courageous people I know," she said. "It took courage for her to be an out lesbian in China, and it takes courage for her to be an out lesbian in the United States, even here in San Francisco."
Chen says she has fallen in love with San Francisco's Chinatown.
To her, it feels both like a place far from home and a home in its own right. What stands out most, she says, is the strong sense of community - people looking out for one another and supporting each other.
One exhibit features a suitcase filled with photographs of Chinese queer people hiding their faces. Chen says it was inspired by a story from the 1970s, when a gay immigrant found refuge in San Francisco's Chinatown, despite the community's conservative reputation.
For her, the story shows that compassion can outweigh prejudice and bring different communities together — a spirit she hopes the museum will help foster.
