2026 Q2 - Everyone Deserves Existential Joy
(7-11 min read / 11 min listen)
For this year’s Pride season, I did some serious R&R…
That is, Reflection & Retrospection. Let’s start with the latter: I made a dubbing reel of some of my favorite roles!
I’d long been intending to make a dubbing reel showcasing my English dubbing work, but it took a while to gather the clips and figure out how to use DaVinci Resolve. I wanted to show that I voice both cis men and cis women as well as Trans and Non-Binary characters. But it didn’t really hit me until I’d settled on the 3-minute final cut just how many Trans characters have been featured in TV and film since 2020, when I began dubbing. Certainly more than just the ones I have personally dubbed (and I’ve dubbed more than I could fit into a 3-minute reel)!
Especially now, during a period of contraction in the entertainment industry and an increasingly fascist and anti-democratic sociopolitical climate disincentivizing what has now unfortunately become “risky” — that is, diversity, equity, and inclusion — it matters that not so long ago, there was an international proliferation of gender-diverse characters in film and television. It matters because diverse representation (and authentic casting!) in entertainment demonstrates that the world is a bigger and more nuanced place than our individual communities, cities, or online bubbles. Stories from marginalized perspectives — or even just including them in small ways — are important because they help enlarge the world. They help us practice empathy and curiosity; stories can humanize that which the status quo deems too “different.”
Which brings me to Reflection.
Q2 always ends with Pride month, and this year I reflected on how anxious and sad I feel — not just about the lack of jobs for me in Hollywood, but for LGBTQIA+ people in the US (and everywhere). I’m sad not just because of the injustice Queer folks face, and Trans folks in particular; I’m sad for all the bigots who are denying themselves the permission to feel the kind of self-love I feel every day.
But I also get it. I’m a confident person now, but that confidence has been hard-won. I am familiar with the fear, the resistance, the existential dread of confronting the question: “What if what I thought was real is actually an illusion?” and “Who am I if I’m not everything I thought I was?” Or scarier still: “What if I do know who I am, and there is nowhere I could belong or feel safe?” And scariest of all: “OK, I choose to live my truth…but how?” Between having anxiety and being non-binary Trans, I’ve experienced the panic, the depression, the cognitive dissonance. But also… the liberation! I think that learning who you really are is everyone’s journey. Being Trans just makes that journey agonizingly literal.
In my reflecting on my sadness, I also invited humility. I’m not sure I would have been brave enough to persevere as a Queer youth if I didn’t have art. I’m not sure I’d be inspired enough to make art my profession if I weren’t Queer.
Perhaps all artists are a bit “queer” — as in strange. Quirky. Eccentric. Other. After all, one can only create and express from an authentic place when one is not preoccupied with trying to fit in to someone else’s notion of what is and should be. To know that one’s point of view is genuinely one’s own requires doubt of the cultural scripts we are pressured to follow. And the pure expression of one’s own human experience is also inherently a bit raw, a bit messy, a bit cringe. “The humanity of it all” is always a bit much. It’s like its defining characteristic!
Committing to the life of a professional artist — an actor in particular — as a Queer and Trans Asian-American was a confounding choice to me. Because on the one hand, I knew I was choosing a difficult path: few casting opportunities, inconsistent employment, stereotypical and problematic roles. But on the other hand, it was the easiest choice ever: I knew myself, and I knew my sense of fulfillment, success, and joy was in the doing. Art, like love, like life, is an action one does. Art is my Way. And I made my choice with intention: to show up and be seen for who I truly am, to build bridges, open hearts and minds; to amplify the stories of marginalized people, to offer a vision of the “other” that has value beyond its being relative to “normal.” And to show that transcending the limitations of that so-called “normal” is a path to existential joy that everyone deserves to experience.
So the “queerness” (as in “unconventionality”) of being an artist fueled my acceptance of my Queerness (as in LGBTQIA+). And the acceptance of my queerness (in all connotations) allowed me to not only make art as in artwork and make art my profession, but to make …myself. In particular regard to my gender (or genders, or lack thereof), I feel literally like an intentional, intuitive work of my own creation. Which sounds overblown, but like I said earlier: the Trans “journey to self” can be agonizingly literal — for both the Trans person themself… and all their friends who have to hear about it all the time.
But continuing with Reflection:
I feel sad not just for my LGBTQIA+ community being targeted by hate, but for all those who think they hate us. Because the gifts Queer folks have to offer — or rather, what our joy and thriving exemplify, at least — are existential joy, self-love and liberation. Particularly with that old agonizingly literal Trans experience: we all have the power to consciously change. There are so many unhealed wounds that deserve attention and mending: shame, abandonment, emotions unmet. And it’s not my job to diagnose bigots nor force what I consider healing upon the world.
But I can keep being the change I want to see in the world, keep being the leader I needed as a kid, and keep offering my Queer artist’s perspective in the form of stories.
Which circles back to Retrospection!
Shortly after Hyun-ju, the character I dub in Squid Game, debuted, I was tagged in a comment on social media from someone who said they used to be transphobic but changed their mind after watching Hyun-ju’s story. I’ve had former bullies from school message me on socials to apologize after seeing me on TV. I’ve narrated audiobooks that both Trans and cisgender listeners have shared with their loved ones for enjoyment, companionship, or education. And seeing graphic novels like TRANS HISTORY (winner of the 2026 Odessey Award!), GAYSIANS, and GENDER QUEER at QCon (Southern California’s only LGBTQIA+ Comic Convention), and seeing people pick them up and find themselves inside those pages, makes me feel so honored and grateful that I was invited to be part of the team that made their audiobook adaptations.
These are the things that continually bring everything full circle for me. Even on days when I’m just hustling to pay rent and focusing on what’s in front of me, even on days my anxiety threatens to unravel me, even on days when the news cycle makes me want to despair…
…I can look back at my career thus far and feel pride. Not just as a Queer artist who is putting themself out there, but pride in the diversity and quality of the projects I’ve had the joy of working on — and with such fantastic teams of people who are also telling stories to expand the world and connect with what is most human. Everyone deserves existential joy, and I’m proud and grateful to be able to share mine.
And now it’s time for the breakdown. Q2 in review:
Audiobooks
Releases:
The Bloody and the Damned (Directed)
Witch Queen Rising (Directed)
Our Guncle (Directed)
The Secret World of Briar Rose (Directed)
Narrating:
Shifter Romantasy series
Queer Mystery/Thriller
Queer LitRPG
Memoir
Nonfiction multi-cast
Queer Romance
Directing:
LGBTQIA+ Children’s Book
YA fantasy fairy tale retelling
Memoir
Nonfiction (arts and crafts)
Romantasy
Voiceover
Thanks for spending time with me and sharing my celebrations again this quarter! Much love!
Cheers!
Nicky
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