Sims: I-I didn’t see very many people who looked like me when I came out in Vancouver. Uhm, I did know of uh, an Indigenous woman, who I would see, but I knew she wasn’t Chinese. [Mhm] Uhm, so for the longest time I felt like, Oh I must be the only one. And then, uhm, gradually uh, when I moved to Toronto- it was nineteen eighty-two, eighty-three- more immigration opened up, uh and, and then people started to organize as well. So it was only until like, the mid nineteen eighties that I saw more visibly, a lot more Asian lesbians… Uhm, but I would, I-I think I’m the only one. But to say y’know, what made me angry was that it was as though there were none of us, like there was no one of colour in the movement and that’s just not true, right. They just didn’t look far enough, they didn’t look hard enough or people didn’t feel safe in coming out in that environment at the time. Um, I was either brave or foolish (laughs) in coming out at the time, y’know what I mean?

Sims: I think that one of the most moving experiences that I've ever had was...uh a young, Chinese, gay youth coming to me one day [ ] spoke at a school, or something like that. And uhm, he said-he said uh...he said that he came out to his parents and he had told his parents that he was gay, and his parents said Oh [inaudible] and oh y'know, like very negative about what- what had happened to him. And uhm, at that time I was running as Member of Parliament, and I had my...my brochures out, with my name in Chinese and English and uhm...and he- and uhm y'know [ ] of meeting a former uhm...Chief Human Rights Commissioner, and he said, I just gave them your information. (long pause) Right, and uhm, they said it- it opened up their minds...like, y'know, he could be who he was and he is, uhm, but still achieve things. And so, they had a different relationship, he said they had a, y'know, a really different relationship after that because they had their own stereotypes and he was able then to say, No, but look, [Yeah] look, here's somebody who's done it. So there's, y'know, thankfully there's a few of us in the Chinese-Canadian community that young Chinese-Canadians could point to and say, They're successful, I can be successful too, you just need to keep on loving me... as your child....Yeah, I-I that was very moving for me, I-I have to say I...when he said that I was like, Oh wow that's- thank you for telling me because it was very, like, I don't- I do what I do because I believe in it, but I don't sometimes think of that for, like, what that might mean to somebody like him. [Yeah] Y'know, and for somebody like him to have said that to me, it was like a gift to me.