While few of his subsequent roles have been as challenging, Wong has since established himself as a talented character actor in film and television, as well as on stage, and as a champion of glbtq causes.

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Born Bradley Darrell Wong on October 24, 1960 in San Francisco, Wong is a fourth-generation Chinese-American. He was raised in the San Francisco Bay area. Following high school graduation, he traveled to New York to pursue his dream of becoming an actor.

In New York, he studied acting, accepted dinner theater and summer stock opportunities, appeared in off-Broadway productions and in small television and film roles.

His career did not shift into high gear until he returned to the West Coast as a member of the cast of the Los Angeles production of the Jerry Herman-Harvey Fierstein musical La Cage aux Folles. His adeptness at playing a female impersonator prepared him for the lead in M. Butterfly.

Wong's performance as Song Liling in his Broadway debut was no less than mesmerizing. Playing a male Chinese spy who successfully poses as a woman in a twenty-five year relationship with a French male diplomat, Wong not only convincingly portrayed the fluidity of gender, but also brought to the role a rare humanity and complexity.

He conveyed the racialized stereotype of the Asian man as an emasculated sissy and the Asian woman as a submissive object of desire, while also turning the stereotypes on their heads. In his role as Song, Wong was at once a "Cio-Cio San," or abandoned and exploited lover, and a manipulative spy. He vividly brought to life the themes of sexual and political imperialism and gender fluidity at the heart of Hwang's play.

Wong also gave a highly acclaimed performance as Kico Govantes, the lover of activist Bill Kraus, played by Ian McKellen, in the HBO television production of And the Band Played On (1993), the adaptation of Randy Shilts' searing account of the first years of the AIDS epidemic.

He was also memorable in the New York Shakespeare Festival's production of gay Singapore playwright Chay Yew's A Language of Their Own (1995), a play that explores a gay interracial relationship.

Wong co-starred as Margaret Cho's brother in the short-lived ABC situation comedy, All American Girl (1994-1995), the first situation comedy on American network television to deal with the Asian-American experience.

From 1997 until 2002, Wong had a recurring role as a priest in the gritty Australian television series Oz, seen on HBO, which was set in a maximum security prison.

In 2002, Wong joined the cast of NBC's Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, playing Dr. George Huang, a forensic psychiatrist.

Wong is a notably versatile actor. Hence, despite the paucity of roles specifically written for Asian Americans, he has kept busy on both the large and small screens.

Wong's film roles have varied from a campy caterer in The Father of the Bride (1991) to a geneticist in Jurassic Park (1993) and a member of an elite anti-terrorist unit in Executive Decision (1996). He was happy to supply the voice of Captain Li Shang in the Disney animated feature Mulan (1998) because the story was one Wong had learned as a child from his parents. He repeated the role in the 2004 sequel Mulan II.

Wong has also appeared in the off-Broadway production of the Irving Berlin-Moss Hart musical As Thousands Cheer (1998) and as Linus in the Broadway revival of the musical You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown (1999). He has made dozens of guest appearances on television series such as Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, Chicago Hope, Sesame Street, and The X-Files.

He has recently scored in the Roundabout Theatre Company revival of the Stephen Sondheim musical Pacific Overtures (2004), about America's 1853 mission to Westernize Japan, and has directed his first feature length film, Social Grace, a comedy about a high-profile interracial romance due to be released in 2005.

Wong has taken seriously his status as one of the few well-known Asian-American actors in Hollywood. He told an interviewer that he is very much connected to his Chinese heritage "but in a very American way." He frequently lectures on diversity issues, particularly on the problem of racial self-hatred and rejection.

Wong also very strongly identifies as a gay man. Hence, he has been a visible presence at AIDS-related charity functions and in gay and lesbian community events, as well as at events sponsored by the Asian Pacific Islander communities.

Wong has appeared at the GLAAD Awards, made promotional spots for the gay and lesbian television newsmagazine In the Life, and worked in various ways to further understanding among both Asians and non-Asians, gays and non-gays, about the experience of being both gay and Asian.

In 2003, Wong published a memoir, Following Foo, which tells the story of how he and his life partner, talent agent Richie Jackson, created their family. They became the fathers of premature twins via a surrogate mother in 1999. One of the twins, Boaz Dov Wong weighed only 2 pounds, 5 ounces and died quickly. The other twin, Jackson Foo Wong, nicknamed "Chestnut Man," was eight ounces heavier and, after a number of close calls, finally prevailed. The book is an inspirational account of the support he and his partner received during their ordeal.

Asian American gays and lesbians voice richly multiple and diverse identities as they assert sexual autonomy in the face of stereotyping, homophobia, and racism.

Relatively little beyond the anecdotal is known of the unique problems and attitudes of glbtq Asia/Pacific Islander Americans since no comprehensive, representative studies of them have been undertaken.

Over three decades of research has repeatedly shown that children of glbtq parents are no different from their peers reared in heterosexual families; recently queerspawn themselves have added their own voices to the discourse.

Many glbtq people reject a fixed definition of family imposed by society, and instead claim the right to define their own families as they choose.

Although few gay actors have been permitted the luxury of openness, many of them have challenged and helped reconfigure notions of masculinity and, to a lesser extent, of homosexuality.

Even though glbtq people have been parents throughout history, recent political movements and advances in fertility technology have given rise to a much more visible and self-identified gay and lesbian parents.

Korean-American bisexual actress turned stand-up comedian Margaret Cho has become one of the most prominent Asian Americans in show business and in glbtq culture.

Award-winning Harvey Fierstein is one of the finest gay male playwrights currently working in the American theater.

The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) is a watchdog group dedicated to promoting accurate representations of the glbtq community in the media.

A proponent of the "diva musical," Broadway composer and lyricist Jerry Herman made homosexuality the undisguised subject of La Cage aux Folles but he did so just as gay culture lost its need of a diva to voice its concerns.

America's only nationally broadcast gay and lesbian newsmagazine, In the Life began in 1992 as a variety show, but has since evolved into an acclaimed public-affairs program.

Versatile Colombian-born author Jaime Manrique has written novels, short stories, poetry, and works of nonfiction with gay themes.

Arguably the finest Shakespearean actor of his generation, Ian McKellen was the first British subject to be knighted after publicly revealing his homosexuality, an event that proved more controversial within the gay community than in the mainstream.

Randy Shilts pioneered as an openly gay journalist in the 1970s and 1980s and was an astute interpreter of the various issues affecting American gay men and lesbians.

Critically acclaimed Asian-American playwright Chay Yew has consistently produced provocative drama addressing issues of racism, homophobia, and censorship.