For #LGBThistorymonth I will be posting an #lgbtq #womaninhistory every day. Today is June Chan, an Asian-American lesbian activist and biologist. Chan’s activism stems from her childhood recollections of racist attitudes to people in Chinatown.

In 1983, she met Katherine Hall and the two began collaborating on projects including creating a slide show of Asian lesbians in history and literature which were shown in the 1980s. The slide show gave lesbians “a larger context for ourselves as Asian and Pacific Islander peoples, as people of color in the United States, and as lesbians.” Together, Chan & Hall formed the Asian Lesbians of the East Coast (ALOEC) in response to the overly white, male LGBT community at the time.

ALOEC provided a place of support for lesbians and raised awareness for LGBT issues relating to the Asian-American community by running workshops, publishing newsletter and taking part in protest marches including the 1989 LGBT march on Washington, D.C. ALOEC has worked with other Asian-American groups, and together some of them formed the formed the Asian Pacific Lesbian Network (later called the Asian Pacific Bi-Sexual Lesbian Network.