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Jenni Chang: When I told
my parents I was gay,

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the first thing they said to me was,

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"We're bringing you back to Taiwan."

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(Laughter)

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In their minds, my sexual orientation
was America's fault.

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The West had corrupted me
with divergent ideas,

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and if only my parents
had never left Taiwan,

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this would not have happened
to their only daughter.

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In truth, I wondered if they were right.

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Of course, there are gay people in Asia,

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just as there are gay people
in every part of the world.

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But is the idea of living an "out" life,

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in the "I'm gay, this is my spouse,
and we're proud of our lives together"

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kind of way just a Western idea?

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If I had grown up in Taiwan,
or any place outside of the West,

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would I have found models
of happy, thriving LGBT people?

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Lisa Dazols: I had similar notions.

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As an HIV social worker in San Francisco,

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I had met many gay immigrants.

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They told me their stories
of persecution in their home countries,

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just for being gay,

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and the reasons
why they escaped to the US.

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I saw how this had beaten them down.

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After 10 years of doing this kind of work,

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I needed better stories for myself.

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I knew the world was far from perfect,

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but surely not every gay story was tragic.

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JC: So as a couple, we both had a need
to find stories of hope.

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So we set off on a mission
to travel the world

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and look for the people
we finally termed as the "Supergays."

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(Laughter)

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These would be the LGBT individuals

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who were doing something
extraordinary in the world.

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They would be courageous, resilient,

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and most of all, proud of who they were.

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They would be the kind of person
that I aspire to be.

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Our plan was to share their stories
to the world through film.

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LD: There was just one problem.

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We had zero reporting
and zero filmmaking experience.

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(Laughter)

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We didn't even know
where to find the Supergays,

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so we just had to trust that we'd
figure it all out along the way.

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So we picked 15 countries
in Asia, Africa and South America,

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countries outside the West
that varied in terms of LGBT rights.

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We bought a camcorder,

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ordered a book
on how to make a documentary --

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(Laughter)

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you can learn a lot these days --

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and set off on an around-the-world trip.

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JC: One of the first countries
that we traveled to was Nepal.

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Despite widespread poverty,
a decade-long civil war,

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and now recently,
a devastating earthquake,

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Nepal has made significant strides
in the fight for equality.

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One of the key figures
in the movement is Bhumika Shrestha.

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A beautiful, vibrant transgendered woman,

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Bhumika has had to overcome
being expelled from school

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and getting incarcerated
because of her gender presentation.

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But, in 2007, Bhumika
and Nepal's LGBT rights organization

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successfully petitioned
the Nepali Supreme Court

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to protect against LGBT discrimination.

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Here's Bhumika:

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(Video) BS: What I'm most proud of?

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I'm a transgendered person.

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I'm so proud of my life.

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On December 21, 2007,

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the supreme court gave the decision
for the Nepal government

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to give transgender identity cards

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and same-sex marriage.

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LD: I can appreciate
Bhumika's confidence on a daily basis.

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Something as simple
as using a public restroom

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can be a huge challenge
when you don't fit in

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to people's strict gender expectations.

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Traveling throughout Asia,

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I tended to freak out women
in public restrooms.

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They weren't used to seeing
someone like me.

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I had to come up with a strategy,
so that I could just pee in peace.

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(Laughter)

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So anytime I would enter a restroom,

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I would thrust out my chest
to show my womanly parts,

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and try to be as
non-threatening as possible.

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Putting out my hands and saying, "Hello",

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just so that people
could hear my feminine voice.

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This all gets pretty exhausting,
but it's just who I am.

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I can't be anything else.

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JC: After Nepal, we traveled to India.

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On one hand, India is a Hindu society,

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without a tradition of homophobia.

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On the other hand, it is also a society
with a deeply patriarchal system,

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which rejects anything
that threatens the male-female order.

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When we spoke to activists,

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they told us that empowerment begins
with ensuring proper gender equality,

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where the women's status
is established in society.

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And in that way, the status of LGBT people
can be affirmed as well.

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LD: There we met Prince Manvendra.

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He's the world's first openly gay prince.

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Prince Manvendra came out
on the "Oprah Winfrey Show,"

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very internationally.

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His parents disowned him

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and accused him of bringing
great shame to the royal family.

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We sat down with Prince Manvendra

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and talked to him about why he decided
to come out so very publicly.

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Here he is:

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(Video) Prince Manvendra: 
I felt there was a lot of need

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to break this stigma and discrimination
which is existing in our society.

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And that instigated me to come out openly
and talk about myself.

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Whether we are gay, we are lesbian,
we are transgender, bisexual

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or whatever sexual minority we come from,

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we have to all unite
and fight for our rights.

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Gay rights cannot be won
in the court rooms,

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but in the hearts and the minds
of the people.

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JC: While getting my hair cut,

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the woman cutting my hair asked me,

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"Do you have a husband?"

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Now, this was a dreaded question

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that I got asked a lot
by locals while traveling.

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When I explained to her
that I was with a woman instead of a man,

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she was incredulous,

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and she asked me a lot of questions
about my parents' reactions

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and whether I was sad
that I'd never be able to have children.

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I told her that there are
no limitations to my life

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and that Lisa and I do plan
to have a family some day.

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Now, this woman was ready to write me off

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as yet another crazy Westerner.

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She couldn't imagine
that such a phenomenon

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could happen in her own country.

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That is, until I showed her
the photos of the Supergays

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that we interviewed in India.

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She recognized Prince Manvendra
from television

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and soon I had an audience
of other hairdressers

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interested in meeting me.

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(Laughter)

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And in that ordinary afternoon,

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I had the chance to introduce
an entire beauty salon

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to the social changes
that were happening in their own country.

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LD: From India,
we traveled to East Africa,

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a region known for intolerance
towards LGBT people.

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In Kenya, 89 percent of people
who come out to their families

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are disowned.

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Homosexual acts are a crime
and can lead to incarceration.

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In Kenya, we met
the soft-spoken David Kuria.

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David had a huge mission
of wanting to work for the poor

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and improve his own government.

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So he decided to run for senate.

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He became Kenya's first
openly gay political candidate.

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David wanted to run his campaign
without denying the reality of who he was.

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But we were worried for his safety

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because he started
to receive death threats.

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(Video) David Kuria: 
At that point, I was really scared

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because they were
actually asking for me to be killed.

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And, yeah,

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there are some people out there who do it

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and they feel that they are doing
a religious obligation.

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JC: David wasn't ashamed of who he was.

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Even in the face of threats,

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he stayed authentic.

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LD: At the opposite end
of the spectrum is Argentina.

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Argentina's a country where 92 percent
of the population identifies as Catholic.

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Yet, Argentina has LGBT laws
that are even more progressive

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than here in the US.

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In 2010, Argentina became
the first country in Latin America

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and the 10th in the world
to adopt marriage equality.

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There, we met María Rachid.

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María was a driving force
behind that movement.

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María Rachid (Spanish):
I always say that, in reality,

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the effects of marriage equality

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are not only for those couples
that get married.

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They are for a lot of people that,
even though they may never get married,

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will be perceived differently
by their coworkers,

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their families and neighbors,

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from the national state's
message of equality.

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I feel very proud of Argentina

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because Argentina today
is a model of equality.

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And hopefully soon,

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the whole world will have the same rights.

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JC: When we made the visit
to my ancestral lands,

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I wish I could have shown
my parents what we found there.

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Because here is who we met:

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(Video) One, two, three.
Welcome gays to Shanghai!

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(Laughter)

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A whole community of young,
beautiful Chinese LGBT people.

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Sure, they had their struggles.

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But they were fighting it out.

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In Shanghai, I had the chance
to speak to a local lesbian group

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and tell them our story
in my broken Mandarin Chinese.

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In Taipei, each time
we got onto the metro,

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we saw yet another
lesbian couple holding hands.

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And we learned that Asia's
largest LGBT pride event

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happens just blocks away
from where my grandparents live.

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If only my parents knew.

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LD: By the time we finished our
not-so-straight journey around the world,

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(Laughter)

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we had traveled 50,000 miles

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and logged 120 hours of video footage.

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We traveled to 15 countries

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and interviewed 50 Supergays.

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Turns out, it wasn't hard
to find them at all.

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JC: Yes, there are still
tragedies that happen

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on the bumpy road to equality.

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And let's not forget that 75 countries
still criminalize homosexuality today.

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But there are also stories
of hope and courage

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in every corner of the world.

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What we ultimately took away
from our journey is,

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equality is not a Western invention.

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LD: One of the key factors
in this equality movement is momentum,

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momentum as more and more people
embrace their full selves

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and use whatever opportunities they have

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to change their part of the world,

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and momentum as more and more countries

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find models of equality in one another.

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When Nepal protected
against LGBT discrimination,

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India pushed harder.

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When Argentina embraced marriage equality,

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Uruguay and Brazil followed.

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When Ireland said yes to equality,

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(Applause)

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the world stopped to notice.

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When the US Supreme Court
makes a statement to the world

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that we can all be proud of.

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(Applause)

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JC: As we reviewed our footage,

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what we realized is that
we were watching a love story.

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It wasn't a love story
that was expected of me,

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but it is one filled
with more freedom, adventure and love

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than I could have ever possibly imagined.

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One year after returning home
from our trip,

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marriage equality came to California.

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And in the end, we believe,
love will win out.

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(Video) By the power vested in me,

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by the state of California

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and by God Almighty,

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I now pronounce you spouses for life.

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You may kiss.

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(Applause)