First of all, Taiwan took the largest step of LGBT. On May 17, 2019, Taiwanese won the right of same-sex marriage, and it was legally effected on May 24, 2019 (Hollingsworth,2019). This is the first step and victory for all the LGBT community in Asia and also give Taiwan to have an honor of the first place, all over in Asia, legalized the same-sex marriage🌈
Taiwan was actually established in early 17th century, but the Republic of China (Taiwan) government was relocated in 1949 with around 1.2 million people from China to Taiwan around late 1940s and early 1950s (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of China (Taiwan), 2018). So the history of LGBT community in Taiwan might be quiet new compare to other places. So in this post, it would be a brief history archive of Taiwan. You’ll see the similar and different movements happened in Taiwan from Japan and other countries.
This is a novel written by Pai Hesien-yung, called “Crystal Boys” (1983). The story is about the main character’s life after being discovered as a gay. It was a critical literature in Taiwan since this was the first book talked about gay, and directly mentioned the social status of LGBT in the society and its history. This book became one of the classic LGBT literatures today, and made into drama, movie, and stage. The following link is the first episode of the drama.
This item is important in my archive is because it gives a point of perspectives of the society in early 1980s. Even though the time period is different from South Korea and Japan, this book provided a great influence of the concept “LGBT” from both countries. Moreover, the book could give you an idea of “family” as blood-related and as a community of LGBT at that time.
This is a website of an organization which created for all the LGBT people in Taiwan on Jun 28th, 1998. The website has 4 missions; “LGBT Peer Mentoring, LGBT Support Network, LGBT Community Center and LGBT Rights Education” (June, 1998) It is aiming to support LGBT community in the technology, social roles, and to be inclusive, reduce the rate of suicides.
This is an important website in this archive is because it recorded more events that happened in Taiwan, and also the organization took the lead of revealing the sex orientations that people had and less hesitated to come to the hospital. So from the website, you can get more small details of LGBT at that time.
This item is a little different from other items, it is a future parade, and this is the promotion of “Gay Pride Taipei, 2019”. It is going to happen in October. An interesting fact is this gay pride parade is the largest scale of people in this Asia. So the website provides you the route of parade, hotel booking promotions, and a video of the parade to encourage people to come.
This is another important item in this archive, because from the video in this website, you could see the differences of the parade happened in Japan. Even though the event is not happened yet, it will give you some sorts of ideas of gay parade. In addition, it will be happened after the same-sex marriage, so it would .be a remarkable historical event in Taiwan.