“I don’t like girls.”
I didn’t want to use the Vietnamese word for it—pê-đê—from the French pédé, short for pédéraste. Before the French occupation, our Vietnamese did not have a name for queer bodies—because they were seen, like all bodies, fleshed and of one source—and I didn’t want to introduce this part of me using the epithet for criminals.”
―
Ocean Vuong,
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous