Disclaimer: Please note that not all board members are displayed due to security reasons.

EXECUTIVE BOARD CO-CHAIR

Chitsanupong "Best" Nithiwana (she/her)

Founder and executive director of Young Pride Club, Chitsanupong "Best" Nithiwana (she/her) is a human rights defender for the rights of LGBTIQ+ youth and gender equality in Thailand. Absolutely dedicated to her career path, she started out as a public information assistant consultant at the UN headquarters. She supported the digital campaign of Youth Peace Security to gain the meaningful participation of women and youth in peace processes worldwide. In 2018, she became the first transgender participant in the US Exchange programme, YSEALI Academic Fellows.

An outspoken advocate for the LGBTIQ+ community, she now runs her own community in Chiang Mai, Thailand, Young Pride Club, which is a safe learning community for young people interested in gender equality and the LGBTIQ+ community. Established in 2018, the community provides on-the-ground activities and online content to develop leadership and participation in gender equality advocacy. Young Pride Club was also a main organizer of the Chiang Mai Pride 2019-2022 and the 2022 Youth Pride Thailand, the country's first pride organized by LGBTIQ+ youth for LGBTIQ+ youth. In 2022, it reached over 40,000 followers and developed 50 young leaders across the country.

Recently, Best also became an APCOM Hero Award Honouree (Community Hero) under the theme “Unity & Diversity '' in recognition of her inspiring work.

EXECUTIVE BOARD CO-CHAIR and west asia representative

Dr. Charbel Maydaa (they/them)

Dr. Charbel Maydaa is a distinguished contributor to the field of (SOGIESC), focusing specifically on the West Asian context. As a west asian representative for ILGA Asia, Dr. Maydaa emphasizes the necessity for comprehension and acceptance of heterogeneous identities. Their role as Founder and General Director of MOSAIC MENA has been instrumental in generating substantial advancements in service provision, advocacy, and capacity development. Further, their engagement with the UKRI GCRF as Primary Investigator accentuates their dedication to intersectional research, encompassing themes such as masculinity, sexuality, migration, and displacement.

East asia representative

Sean Sih-Cheng Du (he/him)

Sean Sih-Cheng Du is the Secretary-General of the Taiwan Tongzhi (LGBTQ+) Hotline Association. He joined Hotline as a volunteer in 2002 and has been since actively involved in the work on LGBTI+ and PLWHIV's rights. He became Hotline's Director of Policy Advocacy in 2011 and the Secretary-General in 2021. His work includes social education, workplace equality, gay men's sexual health, and international affairs. He was a crucial member of the Marriage Equality Coalition Taiwan and a board member of the Persons with HIV/AIDS Rights Advocacy Association of Taiwan. He is currently the East Asian Representative of the ILGA Asia Executive Board, a board member of the Taiwan Equality Campaign, and a member of the Taipei City Committee of Gender Equality. He has a master’s degree in Sociology from National Taiwan University.

Southeast asia representative

Phong Vuong (he/him)

Phong Vuong (he/him) is currently working as the LGBTI Rights Program Manager at the Institute for Studies of Society, Economy and Environment (iSEE). As one of the leading LGBTI organizations in Vietnam since 2007, iSEE has conducted original research on contemporary Vietnamese LGBTI issues, supported LGBTI civil society organizations, facilitated the LGBTI movement and implemented successful social and policy advocacy campaign.

Along with his colleagues, Phong works closely with organizations on the ground, policymakers and the public to build resilient and capable communities, create knowledge and connect stakeholders to advance LGBTI rights in Vietnam through advocacy and social campaign. Some notable achievements include the legalization of legal gender recognition for transgender people (through Article 36 of the Civil Code 2015), the subsequent drafting of the Law on Gender Affirmation (with the Ministry of Health), the I Do campaign towards Marriage Equality and the Leave with Pride campaign that pushed a MOH’s Directive condemning conversion therapy in Vietnam. Phong also led iSEE’s work with regional and international human right mechanisms, and represent iSEE in various organizations and working group, such as ASEAN SOGIE Caucus, or C4TRANS (Coalition for Transgender Rights in Vietnam).

Aside from the work with iSEE, Phong also served as Secretary of The Organizing Board of Hanoi Pride, as Secretary for NextGEN Hanoi - a local LGBTIQ organization, and is a alumni of the YSEALI Professional Fellows Program.

BISEXUAL REPRESENTATIVE

Candy Yun

Candy Yun is an LGBTAIQ+ activist from South Korea. She started her activism in 2006. Starting with her activism in transgender rights organizations, she has been involved in advocacy, education, empowerment, and projects on various LGBTAIQ agendas, and is currently the Executive Director of the Korean Sexual-minority Culture & Right Center. She focuses on LGBTIQ+ & aging related issues.

executive board member

Tashi Tsheten (he/they)

Tashi works for the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom (FNF) South Asia as a Communications & Program Officer and is based in New Delhi. Before joining FNF South Asia, Tashi was the Co-Founder and Coordinator of Queer Voices of Bhutan (QVoB), a SOGIESC Advocacy platform based in Thimphu, Bhutan. Tashi currently plays an advisory role to the Executive Board of QVoB. Tashi is also a member of the Core Working Group/ Regional Board Member of Youth Voices Count (YVC)

Executive Board Member

Jennifer Lu (she/her)

Jennifer is Director for Asia Programs at Outright International. She is a social worker, lesbian feminist, author, and Taiwanese. She has been devoted to LGBT rights and political reform movements for 20 years nationally and internationally. Before joining Outright as the Director for Asia Programs, she was ED of Taiwan Equality Campaign, known as Marriage Equality Coalition Taiwan - an organization that pushed Marriage Equality in Taiwan.

Jennifer was born in Taipei, and she had a younger sister who was the most severe heart disease patient. Her younger sister's struggling life taught her to rethink the most crucial thing in our lives, leading her to join the social movement. She graduated from National Taiwan University with a social worker bachelor and from Sydney University with her policy studies master's degree. Jennifer focused on establishing an LGBT community support system, services, and gender equality education for ten years while working with Taiwan Tongzhi Hotline Association.

She had over 1,000 speeches, and the number is still increasing nowadays. In January 2016, Jennifer represented the Social Democratic Party and ran for a parliamentary seat in general elections as one of the first lesbian candidates in Taiwan. During her election campaign, she and her team successfully raised the visibility of LGBT issues in politics.

They pushed to include equal rights issues and the young generation's political participation on the agenda of the Taiwan parliament. When Jennifer was Chief Coordinator of Marriage Equality Coalition Taiwan and Senior Research Fellow at Taiwan Tongzhi(LGBTQ+) Hotline Association, her team organized several successful rallies, one of which was on Human Rights Day in December 2016, in which over 250,000 people stood up to support Marriage Equality. This rally has pushed society to achieve the significant milestone of Marriage Equality in Taiwan.

Transgender Representative

Chu Thanh Ha (he/him)

Chu Thanh Ha, Hate Crimes and Violence Monitoring Officer, Asia Pacific Transgender Network (APTN) In Vietnam, Chu Thanh Ha is the Founder and Executive Director of IT’S T TIME, a transgender -led organization in Vietnam working as a technical advisory agency for the Ministry of Health in Vietnam during the drafting of the Gender Affirmation Law and promoting for the legal gender recognition process since 2015. He has always been a transgender advocate and senior researcher who is passionate and has 10 years of professional experience in advocating for the voices, visibility, and effective participation of the transgender and gender-diverse community in Vietnam through policy advocacy, community mobilization, movement building, and public education. At the regional level (Asia-Pacific), he has conducted various numbers of regional studies and research to fill in the gap of knowledge regarding gender study and transgender rights; Chu Thanh Ha also believes in the voice of insiders as transgender individuals through participatory research, community led/monitoring and feminist approach.

Intersex Representative

Esan Regmi (he/him)

Esan Regmi is an intersex activist based in Nepal. He is also a co-founder and the executive director of Campaign for Change (the first and only intersex-led organization registered in Nepal since 2017). Esan hosted the first national intersex meeting in Nepal in 2016 and edited the first intersex story in Nepal. Not only on the national level, but Esan has also worked on the UN level. He had proposed CRC and CEDAW reports condemning Intersex Infanticide & Genital Mutilation in 2016 and 2018, respectively. Esan was selected as co-chair of Intersex Asia in 2018. Currently, he is active as a board member of Intersex Asia.