SquadTalks with Kevin Wong: Why Celebrating Pride Is a Year-Round Event
By: Abbie Baxter
New perspectives keep us learning. This has been LaunchSquad’s theme in celebration of Pride this year. From a deep dive into queer ballroom culture to the celebration of LGBTQ+ heroes in our lives, we’ve been sharing, listening and asking a lot of questions to better understand and appreciate the history and significance of Pride.
As part of our Pride activities, we also heard from Kevin Wong, Vice President of Communications at The Trevor Project, the world's largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for the LGBTQ community. In his role, Wong educates people about the organization’s mission to end suicide among LGBTQ+ youths through crisis services, research teams, advocacy groups and more—but he also identifies as a cis gay man. In short, he lives and breathes Pride.
“We try really hard to remind people that LGBTQ is not a month; it’s 365 days a year.”
While sharing his experiences navigating the professional world as a gay Chinese American, Wong acknowledged how privileged he was in his early communications career. When he interviewed for a position at Six Flags, he made the conscious decision to share that he had always aspired to write queer fiction. When he was hired, Wong knew that he would be working alongside a team that encouraged him to bring his whole self to work. Ultimately, they acknowledged his identity in the work they gave him, too—making his job all the more rewarding. These early experiences taught him to embrace his intersectional identity and, in turn, assume nothing about others.
“When you pass me, you might assume that I’m a Chinese American from my appearance,” he said. “But when you talk to me, it becomes clear that I’m also queer. It’s far too easy to assume things about people.”
Wong embodies the notion of “non-assuming” at The Trevor Project every day, where it’s embedded into the company culture. For example, the team champions actions like using gender-neutral pronouns and the term “partner” when referring to a significant other. He believes these small steps can help mitigate microaggressions that often stem from a lack of education, and help people feel validated in their identity.
Our conversation with Wong took place soon after Raiders defensive lineman Carl Nassib became the first active NFL player to publicly declare that he’s gay. In a video shared to TikTok, Nassib also announced a $100,000 donation to The Trevor Project. Wong believes that Nassib’s coming out offers a possibility model in the NFL for youths hoping to pursue professional football, and validates the identity of athletes who weren’t previously represented in sports.
“Support and acceptance is the next step,” said Wong. “We try really hard to remind people that LGBTQ is not a month; it's 365 days a year. People should be waving the flag all year long.”
In addition to showing up for the LGBTQ+ community all year round, Wong shared a few other ways that we can move towards widespread acceptance:
Understanding the acronyms (see here for definitions)
Moving towards pronoun-allyship (see here for a breakdown of pronouns)
Educating oneself on available resources (see here for The Trevor Project’s resource center)
Attending rallies year round (see here for a full list of upcoming Pride events)
To learn more about The Trevor Project and the resources they have made available, please visit thetrevorproject.org.