Bowen Yang, ‘SNL’s’ first Chinese-American cast member and a survivor of ‘gay conversion therapy’ to get HRC Visibility Award
BY MURI ASSUNÇÃO
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON FEBRUARY 11, 2020 THROUGH THE DAILY NEWS
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Bowen Yang, the openly gay freshman cast member of “Saturday Night Life,” will be honored by the Human Rights Campaign for being an inspiration to the LGBTQ community. In September, the 29-year-old actor, comedian, and podcast producer became part of the acting cast of the 45th season of the iconic NBC comedy show, after working as a writer for the show since 2018.
“Through his hilarious representation on and off the screen, Bowen Yang is inspiring LGBTQ young people and many others to embrace their authentic selves,” Alphonso David, the president of HRC, said in a statement. “As one of SNL ’s openly gay and the only Asian American cast member, Yang is boldly moving visibility forward. We are incredibly excited to honor Bowen Yang with HRC’s Visibility Award at the 2020 HRC North Carolina Dinner,” he added.
Born in Australia to a family who had emigrated from East Asia, Yang moved to Aurora, Colorado, at the age of 9. Now a Brooklyn resident, Bowen was the first Chinese American to appear in the show as a regular, and he’s currently one of two openly gay cast members. (Emmy Award-winning comedic powerhouse — and arguably the world’s best Justin Bieber impressionist — Kate McKinnon is the other one.)
Last month, Yang made headlines when he shared in an interview with The New York Times his experiences with so-called “gay conversion therapy” the widely debunked practice of attempting to change a person’s sexual orientation. After his parents discovered he was gay at age 17, they sent him to eight sessions with a “specialist” that could turn him straight.
“It was just crazy,” he said about his therapist, who would try to “explain the gay away with pseudoscience.”
Bowen also shed the spotlight on the pressures of coming out as gay as the son of Chinese Immigrants.
“It was a cultural thing for [his parents], this cultural value around masculinity, around keeping the family line going, keeping certain things holy and sacred,” he said
Previous recipients of the Visibility Award at the HRC North Carolina Gala include actors Evan Rachel Wood, Samira Wiley, and Olympic medalist Adam Rippon.
On March 28, Dan Levy, the star and co-creator of “Schitt’s Creek,” will also receive a Visibility Award, at an HRC gala dinner in Los Angeles.