HANOI — As an LGBTQ activist, legal whizz-kid, and Vietnam’s first openly gay candidate running for a seat in its rubber-stamp parliament, Luong The Huy is determined to lead long-lasting change for the country’s marginalized communities.
Huy, 32, is one of just nine independent candidates running for Vietnam’s National Assembly in elections to be held across the country on Sunday and wants to boost the voices of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, who have long felt discrimination.
But getting his name on the ballot in the communist, one-party state was no simple task.
At the last elections five years ago, more than 100 independent candidates — inclu…
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