Content area
Full Text
Founder of First Gay And Lesbian Asian Group Succumbs To AIDS.
BOSTON -- The founder of one of the first gay Asian groups in history succumbed to AIDS after a five-year battle. Siong-Huat Chua, a native of Malacca, Malaysia, died Aug. 15 at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. He was 39.
In the summer of 1979, Chua, known to his friends as "S.H.," founded boston Asian Gay Men And Lesbians (BAGMAL), the first co-gender lesbian and gay Asian organization in history. Chua formed the group with two lesbians and another gay man at a meeting at Glad Day Bookshop. In 1988, BAGMAL became the Alliance of Massachusetts Asian Lesbians and Gay Men (AMALGM).
A member of the radical Fag Rag Collective, Chua also wrote for the Gay Community News. He penned the definitive article on gay Asians in the Encyclopedia of Homosexuality.
A few months after forming BAGMAL, Chua marched on to the Washington Monument during the first National March on Washington for Gay and Lesbian Rights in 1979. Reminiscing later about the event in the BAGMAL newsletter which...