Before emigrating to Australia in the 1980s, Yang’s family originated from China. His father grew up in rural Inner Mongolia, living a lifestyle that was very different to Yang’s current one: he was raised in a straw and mud hut and, since his parents were illiterate, he taught himself how to read and write by reading books, eventually enrolling in university. He eventually moved to Brisbane with Yang’s mother, an obstetrician and gynaecologist, to get his doctorate.

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While the family has come a long way – both literally and figuratively – Yang’s parents still maintained a conservative mindset, and Yang, who was once on the cover of Entertainment Weekly’s Pride issue, remembers that his parents even once wanted him to undergo conversion therapy.

Last year, he told The New York Times: “They just sat me down and yelled at me and said, ‘We do not understand this. Where we come from, this does not happen.’”

He continued: “Even though as I read up on [conversion therapy], I was just like, ‘Oh, wait, this is all completely crackers.’ It was just crazy. Explain the gay away with pseudoscience.”

But Yang remains immensely patient with them. “Both my parents are doing a lot of work to just try to understand and I cannot rush them,” he said. “I cannot resent them for not arriving at any place sooner than they’re able to get there.”

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Now, Yang is known for opening up the conversation about Asian LGBTQ+ communities, and does it in both overt and subtle ways.

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“I think the first thing I thought was, ‘Wow, queer Asians are supporting other queer Asians,’” Syro co-owner Shaobo Han told The Daily Beast. “Not only did the shoes look fabulous on him, it kind of shows how with red carpets, the Emmys and Hollywood, genderqueerness is breaking in. We’re seeing it with so many other celebrities, and to see an Asian face from New York carry it off the way he did is incredible. There’s a whole generation of young Asian queer people looking at this moment like, ‘He did it, I could do it.’”