With great humility and excitement, I am thankful for the opportunity to contribute to the 2022 ASC Annual Report, sharing my heartfelt perspective as the ASC Chair.

2011 was the year the ASEAN SOGIESC Caucus (ASC) was formally established. But the spark started in 2008.

2008 was the year when, together with a motley crew of crazy LGBTIQ activists, participated in the ASEAN Civil Society Conference (ACSC)/ASEAN Peoples Forum (APF) held in Jakarta, Indonesia. We just had one goal – to have sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) language included in the final list of recommendations for the conference. We jubilantly prevailed and since then, this has been the norm in all ASEAN civil society declarations. Of course, the rainbow flag was flying everywhere in the venue as we claim the ACSC/APF as a safe space to do our LGBTIQ rights advocacy.