Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes
SALT LAKE CITY — Nata Choi felt like he had to pick between being Latino or pansexual when he first came out.
Choi, who was born in Boliva to a Peruvian mother and Korean father, immigrated to Utah at 11. His coming out experience was initially difficult for the family, so he instead turned to friends for support.
"A large portion of the queer community here in Utah is white. ... When I came out and I began to find community, I found the white, gay community," he said. "One thing that I felt like I couldn't be is Latino or Latinx. I just felt like I couldn't bring my culture into it. But I could definitely feel safe in my gender and sexuality."
It wasn't until forming Unidxs — a group creating community for Latino LGBTQ+ Utahns — that Choi felt he had a space where he didn't have to pick and choose parts of his identity. "Unidos" is Spanish for united. The "x" in Unidxs is a non-gendered form of the word similar to "Latinx" instead of "Latino."
"Being part of Unidxs has helped me to bridge that gap between my gender and sexuality and my culture so that I can be 100% fully myself," he said. "I can speak Spanish, I can dance the dances we have, I can truly be myself and also, for example, dance with another man or be able to talk about gender or sexuality in an open way. It's really brought together two of these big parts of me that were once divided."
Choi and co-founder Nick Arteaga formed Unidxs two years ago. It's since garnered over 1,000 Instagram followers — some attend the groups's monthly "café con leché" event to mingle while munching on treats like pan dulcé and coffee or other events like a drag story hour.
Board member Aimee Contreras Ocanico stressed the importance of having spaces and events "de nosotros, para nosotros."
"We deserve events that are from us, for us, per se," she said. "We deserve a space to be ourselves and to not feel uncomfortable either."
Breaking generational barriers
Five years ago, Contreras would never have imagined discussing sexuality and gender with her family. But she said it's been beautiful to watch their understanding evolve.
"Bringing them to (Unidxs) events will be an eye changer. It will be uncomfortable for sure, but I think — as typical and cliche as it sounds — that's gonna help them change," she said. "It just takes one child in the family to flip the table, to change and break generational trauma and generational barriers and to have these conversations."
Unidxs Co-founder Nick Arteaga, who is trans and nonbinary, said exploring his sexuality and gender was heavily impacted by growing up in a Spanish-speaking household.
"To have a very clear picture of what was expected of me, and for nothing inside me to align with that was really confusing; it was very isolating," he said. "To be able to try to identify what these different feelings were and not having the language for it — quite literally, you know, being raised in a multilingual household — it was really, really hard."
As Choi put it, gender and sexuality aren't typically discussed in Latino households. Roberto Lopez — Unidxs treasurer and a pansexual, genderqueer father — agreed.
"In my family, it was really weird because we didn't really talk about anything. And so, for me, that was normal," Lopez said. "We just didn't talk about things because they were just day-to-day normal things. No one made you feel inadequate for anything, how you dressed, how you acted. My family was pretty open-minded for a lot of things. None of that was impacted until I moved to Utah."
That approach extended to the family's immigration status. Lopez wouldn't find out he was undocumented until he became a father at 16 and began looking for a job to provide for his son. He's taking a different approach with his three teen children who sometimes tag along to Unidxs events.
"When they come to these events, they see people like them, they see people that are not like them. They engage in a different way because they see me comfortable," he said. "This group is been very accepting because of the different intersections that we have."
Reclaiming culture
Latinos who are generations removed from the immigrant experience or who didn't grow up speaking Spanish sometimes find it difficult to access the culture. That was the case for Andres Brown, a nonbinary, multiracial therapist who uses they/them pronouns. Brown's parents divorced early on in their life, which somewhat severed Brown from their Guatemalan father's culture.
"I think being multiracial and not being raised by my dad, or being really connected to my my dad's culture, means that I still have this real kind of 'outside looking in' on some things," Brown said. "I think what I experienced with my dad was kind of immigration trauma, where you can often have people who are immigrants who then feel really conflicted with their cultural identities. They want to assimilate or acculturate into the culture that they thought would give the most opportunities."
Brown was fully immersed in the Spanish language and Latino culture for the first time as a missionary in Mexico. Unidxs was a pivotal step in their journey to reclaim their heritage and explore their gender and sexuality.
"The first time that I came to one of these, there was this real quick like, 'You are one of us, you belong, you get to be here,'" Brown said. "I was worried that I wasn't brown enough or Latino enough or any of those things, but I haven't felt that. In fact, I felt kind of that ease that I represent a piece of the Latinx experience as the child of an immigrant that didn't get access to that culture."
Regardless of where people are in their journeys, Arteaga said they are welcome at Unidxs.
"Give yourself grace for wherever you're at in your journey, but also know that there are people out there that want to share space with you and that understand what you're going through," he said. "Just come whenever you're ready."
CORRECTION: A previous version misspelled Nata Choi's surname as Choy.
