A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.

A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.



APEX Express and Lavender Phoenix are both members of AACRE, Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality. AACRE focuses on long-term movement building, capacity infrastructure, and leadership support for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders committed to social justice.

To learn more about Lavender Phoenix, please visit their website. You can also listen to a previous APEX Express episode honoring Lavender Phoenix’s name change. 

Miata Tan: ​[00:00:00 ] Hello and welcome. You are tuning in to APEX Express, a weekly radio show uplifting the voices and stories of Asian Americans. I am your host, Miata Tan. And before we get started, I wanted to let you know that this show was recorded on December 16th, 2025. Things may have changed by the time you hear this.

I also wanted to take a moment to acknowledge [00:01:00 ] some recent gun violence tragedies, not only in the US but globally. As you might be able to tell from my accent, I’m Australian.

 Over the weekend, 15 people were killed in Sydney, on Bondi Beach in a mass shooting. The likes not seen in 30 years. . Australia’s gun control laws are different to the US in a number of ways that I won’t get into right now, but this massacre is one of the few we’ve seen since the nineties.

In the US we’ve also seen the shooting at Brown University where two of their students were killed by a still active shooter.

It’s strange. Guns and weapons are horrific. Tools used to take the life of people every day globally. An everyday occurrence now brings a degree of complacency. Although you personally might not have been [00:02:00 ] impacted by these recent shootings, the wars going on abroad, or government attacks on immigrant communities, and ICE deportation cases taking place here in America, the impact of horrific acts of violence have ripple effects that spread across this country and world.

Careless violence motivated by hate for another be that racially charged conflicting ideologies. It’s all awful. And I, and I guess I wanted to acknowledge that here at the top of this episode.

Profound hatred and judgment toward others is not only incredibly sad, it’s self-defeating. And I don’t mean to sound all preachy and I understand it’s December 25th and perhaps you’re sick of the sound of my voice and you’re about to change the station.

In all honesty, I, I would’ve by [00:03:00 ] now. It’s easy to tune out suffering. It’s easy to tune out violence, but if you’re still listening. Today, as many of us are gathering for the holiday ,season, whether or not you believe in a higher power or acknowledge that big guy in a red suit that brings kids presents, I invite you to sit with some of these thoughts. To acknowledge and reflect on the violence that exists around us, the hatred and dehumanization. We as humans are capable of feeling toward one another. Let’s just sit here for a moment with that uncomfortability.

Now. Think, what can I do today to make another’s life [00:04:00 ] just that tiny bit brighter?

Okay. Now to reintroduce myself and this show, my name is Miata Tan and this is APEX Express. A show that honors Asian American communities far and wide, uplifting the voices of artists, activists, organizers, and more. We have two incredible guests today from Lavender Phoenix, a Bay Area based organization supporting queer and trans Asian and Pacific Islander youth.

I really enjoyed my conversation with these two, and I’m sure you will as well.

And a quick note throughout both of these conversations, you’ll hear us referring to the organization as both Lavender Phoenix and it’s very cute nickname Lav Nix. Without further ado, here’s [00:05:00 ] my conversation with Yuan Wang, the outgoing director at Lavender Phoenix.

Miata Tan: Yuan, thank you so much for joining us today. Would you be able to share a little bit about yourself with our listeners to get started? 

Yuan Wang: Yeah. I’m so excited to be here.

, My name is Yuan. My pronouns are she, and they, and I’m actually the outgoing executive director of Lavender Phoenix. You’re catching me on my second to last week in this role after about four years as the executive director, and more years on our staff team as an organizer and also as a part of our youth summer organizer program.

So this is a really exciting and special time and I’m really excited to reflect about it with you. 

Miata Tan: Yay. I’m so excited. I’d love for you to give us an overview of Lavender Phoenix and the work that y’all do, what communities you support, 

Yuan Wang: Lavender Phoenix was founded about 21 years ago, and we are based in the Bay [00:06:00 ] Area. We’re a grassroots organization that builds the power of transgender non-binary and queer Asian and Pacific Islander communities right here in the Bay. Right now our work focuses on three major Areas.

The first is around fighting for true community safety. There are so, so many ways that queer, trans, and more broadly, uh, working class communities in the San Francisco Bay Area. Are needing ways to keep ourselves and each other safe, that don’t rely on things like policing, that don’t rely on things like incarceration that are actually taking people out of our communities and making us less safe.

The second big pillar of our work is around healing justice. We know that a lot of folks in our community. Struggle with violence, struggle with trauma, struggle with isolation, and that a lot of the systems that exist aren’t actually really designed for queer and trans API people, to thrive and feel connected.

And [00:07:00 ] so, we’ve been leading programs and campaigns around healing justice. And the last thing is we’re trying to build a really principled, high integrity leaderful movement. So we do a ton of base building work, which just means that, everyday queer and trans API people in our community can come to Lavender Phoenix, who want to be involved in organizing and political work.

And we train folks to become organizers.

Miata Tan: And you yourself came into Lavender Phoenix through one of those programs, is that right? 

Yuan Wang: Yeah. Um, that is so true. I came into Lavender Phoenix about seven or eight years ago through the Summer organizer program, which is kind of our flagship youth organizing fellowship.

And I was super lucky to be a part of that. 

Miata Tan: How has that felt coming into Lavender Phoenix? Like as a participant of one of those programs? Yeah. And now, uh, over the past few years, being able to [00:08:00 ] lead the organization? 

Yuan Wang: Yeah. It feels like the most incredible gift. I share this a lot, but you know, when I had come into Lavender Phoenix through the summer organizer program, I had already had some experience, doing organizing work, you know, doing door knocking, working on campaigns.

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