Executive Director of the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance, Kat Evasco is an award-winning writer, theatermaker, filmmaker, and cultural strategist uplifting immigrant, women, AAPI and LGBTQ+ experiences. Evasco founded With You, a cultural strategy company and is the Executive Director for NQAPIA. She serves on the board of directors at Open Television (OTV) and Brava for Women in the Arts. Evasco is a 2018 Lambda Literary Fellow and her work has been featured in Deadline, IndieWire, and NBC News Asian America. She received her BA in Asian American Studies from SFSU. In a world that demands our silence, queer Filipina theater artist, filmmaker, and cultural strategist Kat Evasco flips the script, weaving together comedy, theater, and film to prove that our stories are not just survival tools, but the most powerful technology for liberation we have. Drawing from her one-woman show Mommy Queerest and her work producing and directing autobiographical solo shows, she invites us to excavate our innate power, connect through truth, and collectively imagine and build a world centered in justice, equity, joy, and love.

We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For

Putting Allyship into Action

"Putting Allyship Into Action" works to help attendees gain understanding of and confidence to embody principles of allyship and advocacy. Our goal is for participants to develop skills and practices to allow them to feel able to advocate for themselves and others based on their unique skills, identities, and experiences.

Ishani Dugar (they/xe) is the San Mateo County Pride Center’s Lead Trainer and Peer Group Coordinator. In xyr role, they focus on providing SOGIE (and beyond) trainings to help folks better support the LGBTQ+ community, and running peer social support for community members themselves.

"Now more than ever, we need to grow and use our political power - whether it's joining or starting an organization, holding a rally, or seeking appointed or elected office.This workshop will cover the many ways ideas can become policy, how state and local government can fund our needs and how and when to get funding, an overview of existing organizations in the Bay Area and what they are working on, basics of holding a rally or event, how local commissions and government work and how to get involved.

Alfred Twu was elected to the Berkeley Rent Board in 2024, and also serves on local commissions and the board of many AAPI and LGBTQ organizations. They have organized rallies, planned discussions to highlight the work of LGBTQ Asian American and Pacific Islander leaders, and worked on political party platforms, resolutions, and campaigns.

How and why to get involved in Politics and Local Government

The Art of Resistance: History, Knowledge, and Creation in Times of Struggle

Come learn about notable, revolutionary, queer & Asian artists! We will explore how we can spur a community into action in times of censorship. By being creative, we better understand ourselves, each other and what we are fighting for. This workshop will be a space to inspire your artistic spirit, create your own works of art, and discuss how radical art has affected our own lives.

Presented by Wren Tran, Crysanna Maciel, Valen Lo | APIQ (Asian & Pacific-Islander Queers) is a UC Davis student organization founded in 1999. Our mission is to provide a safe, confidential space for students who identify as both Asian and/or Pacific-Islander and part of the LGBTQIA+ community. We hope to enrich and educate all students in the UC Davis community who are interested in queer and Asian issues through exploration of topics like identity, coming out, health, and politics.

What does it take to build power as a queer and Asian person? Community organizer, drag performer, and San Francisco supervisor candidate Michael Nguyen shares his journey from activist to candidate and helps you find and practice your own advocacy. Join Nguyen for an interactive session on what it looks like to build power, as he shares his own journey from activist to organizer to politico.

Michael Nguyen is a Twin Peaks renter, daily Muni rider, patent attorney, drag performer Juicy Liu, and co-founder of QTAPI Visibility Week. He is currently running to become the first drag queen, first Vietnamese American, and first person of color to represent District 8 on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

An Intergenerational Perspective on Leadership and Community Organizing in the Bay Area and Beyond

Nothing About Us Without Us: QTAPI Power Building

Through guided discussion, small group strategy sessions, and a synthesis process, participants will analyze the specific conditions facing QTAPI communities, imagine a future rooted in self-determination, and leave with concrete commitments to collective action. No prior organizing experience is required. Just bring your whole self and your community's wisdom.

Kat Evasco is an award-winning writer, theatermaker, filmmaker, and cultural strategist uplifting immigrant, women, AAPI and LGBTQ+ experiences. Evasco founded With You, a cultural strategy company and is the Executive Director for NQAPIA. She serves on the board of directors at Open Television (OTV) and Brava for Women in the Arts. Evasco is a 2018 Lambda Literary Fellow and her work has been featured in Deadline, IndieWire, and NBC News Asian America. She received her BA in Asian American Studies from SFSU.

For so many of us in the queer and trans API diaspora, family rejection doesn’t just mean losing relationships, it means losing language, traditions, stories, and a sense of cultural grounding. This workshop is for anyone who has ever felt that loss, regardless of your heritage. Together, we’ll explore how colonization, immigration, and family rejection have shaped our relationships with our heritage languages. We’ll sit with the discomfort of the idea of (re)learning language as adults, and reframe that discomfort not as failure, but as courage. No Language experience needed. Come as you are. Let’s reclaim what was lost, together.

Total Nguyễn (they/them) is a ballroom/Latin dancer, Vietnamese language instructor, and longtime QACON attendee. They founded QTViệt Lingo, a warm, safe online space connecting LGBTQ+ Vietnamese diaspora with language, history, and culture. They also represent QTViệt Cafe Collective and INNOVIỆT Music. They believe that reclaiming heritage language—even imperfectly, even uncomfortably is a profound act of healing and community care. They're honored to be in community with you.

Language as Healing for Queer & Trans API Diaspora

Asian and Queer Health Equity and HIV/STI prevention breakthrough

This workshop will cover HIV prevention tools such as PrEP and
DoxyPEP, STI prevention basics, and how to access culturally
responsive sexual healthcare. We will help attendees understand systemic barriers that Queer & Asian individuals face in healthcare settings, including stigma, invisibility, and language/cultural gaps. Attendees will leave feeling empowered to advocate for themselves in medical spaces and demand accountability from larger healthcare systems, and will be provided with resources for support and advocacy for their sexual health.

Presented by Aleta Lewis, Berenice Marquez, Juan Argueta-Rodriguez, Sam Gussen, Esse Garica, April Le. Bridge HIV is a leader in HIV prevention research. In conjunction with our diverse Bay Area communities, we conduct initiative research that is guiding global approaches in HIV prevention.

Join us as we explore and celebrate the rich history of Queer & Transgender Asian & Pacific Islander (QTAPI) resilience & resistance. We aim to use history as a source of empowerment and action, rather than despair and complacency. This includes naming patterns of discrimination and anti-Blackness and Brownness both against and within our communities, and acknowledging the power of solidarity in our activism. We juxtapose the assimilation and radicalism within API history, and how imperialism and sovereignty are part of the narrative of our homelands. We compare and contrast the ways that QT people and POC have historically survived criminalization imposed by US imperialism.

Presented by Saven Ali, Jiwoo Kim, Reema Karvir, Rex Caballero. Queer & Asian @ SJSU is a space for Queer, Trans, & Asian, Pacific Islander students @ SJSU to organize & build community. Our goal is to build solidarity and increase political awareness together.

Always Here, Always Will Be: A QTAPI History Workshop