Anastasia Lee has been searching for the right words for a long time.
If she found them, she said, it would feel like a homecoming.
"Like [when] you go home, and your mother is there, and she knows exactly what to say, and she knows what to cook you without asking, it's just like that," Ms Lee said.
To find the right words, Ms Lee, a trans woman who migrated from Vietnam to Australia as a teenager, is participating in a new Australian initiative to create an LGBTIQA+ terminology guide in languages other than English.
"I still don't know how to address my identities as a Vietnamese person, even though I can speak fluently in Vietnamese," she said.
Ms Lee said she was often confronted by demeaning or derogatory words used in Vietnamese to describe LGBTIQA+ people and concepts.
She has even come across brochures advertising support for LGBTIQA+ people translated from English to Vietnamese that contain offensive terminology.
When Ms Lee arrived in Australia, she said she had more space to explore her gender, but not having access to Vietnamese resources to help her understand the journey she was on was painful.
"I was suicidal simply because I kept carrying the [negative] images and the terminologies I absorbed as a child and then when I came [to Australia] there was nothing in Vietnamese for me," she said.
"There's a bit of cultural detachment, because when I look at myself as an LGBTIQ person in Vietnamese, I see trauma mainly, rather than something nice."
She hopes the terminology guide will give people, especially the young, the knowledge and strength to articulate their queer identities to their friends and families in multiple languages.
"Hopefully projects like these will help to reconcile all these broken relationships."
'I know how to explain my identity'
The terminology guide and translator resource is being developed by RMIT University and AGMC — Australia's peak body for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex, queer people of multicultural and multi-faith backgrounds.
Project coordinator Budi Sudarto says while there are existing resources, this project is unique in bringing together LGBTQIA+ community members to design the guide.
Mx Sudarto grew up in Indonesia, and said "because of the social, cultural and political situation [there], queer stuff cannot be easily mentioned [there]."
"The acronym comes with certain social stigma, and that comes from this heteronormative culture, it comes from patriarchy, it comes from this long history of discrimination."
As a non-binary person, Mx Sudarto said it was difficult to find words to articulate their experience and identity. But language is quickly evolving.
"I was looking for what is non-binary in Bahasa, because it didn't exist when I was young, before I moved to Australia," they said.
"[Now] there is already a word for it."
The speed at which language is evolving is another reason Mx Sudarto says it is important LGBTQIA+ community members can drive the terminology guide project.
Six languages have been chosen for the terminology project.
Vietnamese, Spanish, Mandarin and Cantonese where chosen because of the existing and growing communities of these language speakers in Australia.
Korean and Arabic were chosen because of a desire to raise awareness of ideal terminology in these languages, Mx Sudarto said, adding that a Korean interpreter had described a lingering anti-LGBTQ sentiment within the community.
People don't want to talk about this 'freaky topic'
Michael Tien said not many people he knew in China were aware of the importance of language when it came to LGBTQIA+ terminology.
People don't want to talk about this "freaky topic" in China, he said.
He said even those who know the ideal terminology don't want to correct disrespectful language, "because they want to be kind, they want to be good, they want to be in the closet", he said.
But he is starting to speak up.
"I feel like it's very important to raise it up — the importance of using the correct vocabulary," he said.
Mr Tien, a gay man and a peer mentor who works with international students at RMIT, was once an international student himself.
He came to Australia several years ago to study a "boring" masters in finance — the kind Asian parents want you to study, he jokes.
He is participating in the terminology project because he believes it will be a great resource for international students and he hopes it will be shared widely among universities.
"It's very important to know how to talk with [LGBTQIA+ students], how to make them feel they are involved and feel welcome," he said.
When he was a student he tried to ignore the offensive language he heard spoken among Chinese international students.
"But as time goes by, in your mind, you might feel so stressed and so overwhelmed — why [are] people not respecting your language and your vocabulary?"
'Situation the same in every language'
Dr Miranda Lai, head of RMIT's translation and interpreting department, said the university received industry feedback that many interpreters weren't equipped when it came to working with members of the LGBTQIA+ community.
Dr Lai said she witnessed issues first-hand when looking for interpreters to work with community members in the upcoming workshop sessions to develop the guide.
"Simply to recruit interpreters and translators to participate, it is a little bit of a surprise that it turns out not to be as straightforward," she said.
"The interpreting and translation professionals, they might not feel comfortable even being in that sort of situation, even being in discussions about the concept and the terminology."
Luckily, she said they found the right people and overcame the challenge.
She said people's views and experiences can impact how willing they are to educate themselves and raise their own awareness on terminology and issues faced by LGBTQIA+ communities.
This is universal, and occurs in all languages, including English, she said.
"I think the situation is exactly the same in every language only, you know, in different degrees," she said.
The guide will not only be a resource for translators and interpreters, but it will be available for anyone to access.
Mx Sudarto said the goal is to make sure people are embraced and celebrated not only by their cultural communities but also by the wider LGBTQIA+ community in Australia.
"It is to make sure that people from multicultural, multilingual, multi-faith communities, can actually see something that relates to them," Mx Sudarto said.
They hope through the guide, with changes in language free of stigma and disrespect, understanding will flow.
"We're not just this group of people who sit out there outside of the community, we're actually part of the communities."
