LGBT Asians around the world are fighting back in the face of coronavirus-inspired racist attacks against Asians.

"Obviously, there has always been racism toward the Asian community, but we've never seen anything that has been so quick and so globally widespread as this," Amazin LeThi, founder of the Amazin LeThi Foundation, told the Bay Area Reporter from Europe, where she was sheltering in place.

"Sometimes it just feels like they just consider the whole continent of Asia China," the American-raised Vietnamese LGBT activist, Stonewall UK and Athlete Ally ambassador, and athlete added. "They just see an Asian person and because the coronavirus came from Asia, we are all part of the problem."

"It's alarming in a way and it's kind of weird, right?" said Gerald Esguerra, who is the head of the Filipino LGBT Europe's Out & Proud Advocacy Committee in Amsterdam. "We lost humanity. It doesn't necessarily mean that if you're Asian you are carrying the virus."

LeThi added, "The coronavirus may have come from China, but in terms of how it's being spread across the world, it's everyone. It's a global virus."

Each one of the queer Asians who spoke with the B.A.R. has been on the receiving end of racism since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19, a respiratory illness. As of April 7, there were nearly 1.4 million people around the world infected with the virus. The United States surpassed Italy, Spain, and China as the nation with the highest number of cases. Read more via Bay Area Reporter