Crystal Jang
Crystal Jang is a fourth-generation Chinese-American and San Francisco native. Her first experiences with activism included petitioning to be the first woman mascot at Galileo High School, organizing a direct action against the gendered dress code at city college, and defying the rule forbidding women to ride the outside of the cable car. Crystal was involved in the Asian American movement, the anti-war movement, and the feminist and Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) movement.
Afterwards, Crystal was involved with Asian Pacific Sisters (APS) and Asian Pacific Lesbian and Bisexual Network (APLBN). She later co-founded the Asian Pacific Islander Queer Women and Transgender Community (APIQWTC) and Older Asian Sisters In Solidarity (OASIS). Crystal had a long tenure as a teacher for SFUSD and was dedicated to bringing in resources for LGBTQ students and families such as trainings, panels, and speakers. She has an adopted daughter, Cameron, and is married to her partner, Sydney. Her “love for teaching and creating opportunities for kids” is a central part of her community activism (DFP, 63-64). Crystal’s work is also driven by her love for activism, for the community, and the love she has received from others (DFP, 65-66).
As a lesbian, identified lesbian in the sixties, parenting was even considered illegal. You know, many of my friends, growing up and getting married, in heterosexual relationships, and they were having children, but as an emerging lesbian and in the white lesbian community, because there were no Asian lesbians around, we were actually going through the women’s movement, and then going through the separatist women’s movement. And families, of having the idea of having traditional families and having children, were at odds of who being a feminist was, or separatist was.