LGBTaiwan

By Allister Chang

[lgbtaiwan]

Me: What's the end goal?

Chiwei: When parents my grandmother's age can talk about their gay grandchildren's marriages at the traditional markets.

[lgbtaiwan]

A "Traditional Taiwanese" View of Marriage

I just got back from an organic farm in a small town in western Taiwan. A guy in his 30s and his father operate the farm. I lived with them, ate with them, and worked with them for a week. In these circumstances, I rarely say anything about my personal life. When I am living under someone else's roof, I think it's more respectful and appropriate to just listen. In his 20s, the father had married a woman from his village who he'd known since childhood.  He would give me relationship advice from time to time in ways that really reinforced for me the idea of marriage as a duty. At one point, when talking about divorce, he lamented how couples shouldn't break up. Any couple will have clashes of personalities and differences of opinion, but that shouldn't be enough to warrant a divorce. On the other hand, he added that it's important to find a woman who will listen to you (as a man). When a woman makes more money or doesn't listen to your directives, that's an understandable reason to split up, he explained, because that takes a stab at your role and your respect. He also recommended that I quickly get married in order to have kids young, that way when I grow up, I would be able to go out and live my life. In other words, accomplish your duties and then do what you want.

[lgbtaiwan]

Review Meeting of the ROC's Initial Reports under the ICCPR and ICESCR

Taiwan signed and ratified two United Nations multilateral treaties, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESR).  Both are part of the International Bill of Rights.

At the end of February a couple of weeks ago, the Presidential Advisory Committee on Human Rights hosted a review of the ROC's Initial Reports under the ICESR and the ICCPR at the Howard Civil Service International House.  

For more information on the review agenda, committee, and conclusions, click here.

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Of note, these discussions did include mentions of the Gender Equality Education Act and same-sex marriage in Taiwan.

Here, however, I would like to focus on how the Taiwanese government continues to argue that LGBTQ rights are already well protected in Taiwan.  True, there have been nearly no reported issues of hate crimes against LGBTQ persons in Taiwan.  Compared to Taiwan, even northern European countries record significantly more cases of hate crime.  The Hotline Association of Taiwan is quick to point out that this is not evidence of how progressive Taiwan's laws are in protecting LGBTQ rights, but how LGBTQ issues in Taiwan may not be measured according to the same factors as LGBTQ issues in Europe.

[lgbtaiwan]

The Safety Rationale?

A Taiwanese friend just told me about coming out to her father.  His response was positive, and came with the explanation that he'd always been worried that his daughter would be tricked and taken advantage of by a man.  He said he felt his daughter would be safer with another girl.

[lgbtaiwan]

Reconsidering Assessments of Local LGBTQ Movements

Last week, CBC News published an article titled "Hong Kong behind the times on gay rights," focusing on how "Hong Kong's government isn't moving forward on anti-discrimination legislation." After spending the greater part of last week in Hong Kong with my boyfriend, nobody so much as glared at us on the street when we held hands. Certainly, Hong Kong has its own issues – including a lack of anti-discrimination laws – but to assess Hong Kong's LGBTQ movement's achievements according to the "Western" criterion is somewhat unproductive, if not misleading.

Canadian police logged over 1000 gay hate crimes as recently as 2008. According to CY Chao – one of four publicly funded staff in Hong Kong working on LGBTQ issues – Hong Kong has more or less no gay hate crime beyond bullying in schools. Up to 40% of Canadian homeless youth are LGBTQ, whereas Chao has not yet come across any cases of LGBTQ homeless youth in Hong Kong. If we just take rates of LGBTQ hate crimes and rates of LGBTQ homelessness as factors to measure the success of an area's LGBTQ rights movement, then the title of Fitzgerald's article in CBC news should instead read "Canada behind the times on gay rights." While pushing for anti-discrimination legislation in Toronto's homeless shelters may significantly change certain people's lives, the same policy may make no such impact in Hong Kong.

In Hong Kong, 2012 ended with with good and bad news. In November, the government rejected a proposal to hold public consultations on adding sexual orientation to existing anti-discrimination legislation. Though the failure of this proposal certainly engendered frustration and disappointment, the year 2012 also saw important developments in LGBTQ rights in Hong Kong, mainly the coming out of three important public figures. Singer Anthony Wong had came out in April as the first openly gay male celebrity, newly elected legislator Raymond Chan Chi-chuen came out as the first openly gay legislator after the election in September, and shortly after, Dennise Ho came out at Pride as the first openly lesbian female celebrity.

According to Chao, the coming out of three public figures in Hong Kong was "very important because now we have leaders to look up to." In some ways, the coming out of public figures accomplishes pieces of what anti-discrimination legislation aims to do: to help LGBTQ people feel more comfortable and self-confident. When seen in this light, 2012 was not a stagnant year for LGBTQ rights in Hong Kong, even though no relevant legislation was passed.

Chao's optimistic reflections resonated with me after we spoke on Sunday. I understand that it is difficult to feel comfortable without legal protections, and marriage equality is financially, emotionally, and symbolically significant, but what is it all for if not steps towards making real changes in real people's lives? I personally feel less comfortable holding hands with my boyfriend on the streets of London or Paris, than I do in Hong Kong or Taipei, even though London and Paris are "ahead" in terms of LGBTQ legislation.

Chao works in an environment where he thinks confrontation will only flame anti-gay response. When he leads workshops for teachers and students in Hong Kong public schools – many of which are operated under the auspices of Christian churches – he posits that he makes more headway by telling stories and inducing empathy than he would by advocating for human rights or specific legislation. Chao strongly advocates for what he calls a "soft" approach, where demanding what we want right now may not always be productive.

In one example, Chao explained how the parents of one gay boy he worked with threatened to kill their son for being gay. The parents sent the son to mainland China, perhaps thinking that it was Hong Kong that had "turned" him gay. Chao's advice to the son at the time was to agree to go through ex-gay therapy. Is this too much of a compromise, or does this reveal a Confucian priority for keeping families together? Are we part of an international LGBTQ rights movement that can be standardized according to certain legislative standards of achievement, or are there more productive ways to judge the progress of local LGBTQ movements that commend and support local activists like Chao?

[lgbtaiwan]

My parents worried that I would face discrimination in society as a gay man, but the only discrimination I have ever faced is from my own family.

Mengchu L., 34

[lgbtaiwan]

Press Conference to “Demistify 台灣真愛聯盟 (Taiwan True Love Alliance)” Taiwan implemented the Gender Equity Education Act in June 2004. Since then, right-wing social organizations have taken a stance against discussions of safe-sex practices and LGBTQ identities. A press conference was held today for proponents of discussions of safe-sex practices & LGBTQ identities. They argued that the 台灣真愛聯盟 — which I translate as the “Taiwan True Love Alliance” — has twisted the purpose of the 2004 education policy to scare parents into mobilizing against it. Lawyer Hu Shi Wei says the “Alliance” has not only critiqued our policies — that’s OK, she added — but have personally attacked us, pushing the boundaries of protected freedoms of speech and religion with violent discrimination and slandorous lies. In one example, an “Alliance” representative called all these teachers and policy-makers advocating to educate middle school students about gender and sexuality “Communist Red Guards.” “They blame us for teaching middle school kids different sexual positions,” Hu explained, “but that’s not part of the curriculum, nor has that ever been our purpose!” Since opposition to the Gender Equity Education Act have grown — flamed by the (false) belief that teachers (especially gay teachers) are using this policy as an excuse to teach students about anal sex and thereby "convert" young Taiwanese children gay — a provision of the law was recently been edited from “guiding the students to understand themselves,” to “teaching the students how to tolerate others.” Proponents of the Act expressed fear that other provisions in the Act would continue to “contract” and “slide back” rather than “progress forward.”

[lgbtaiwan]

Deporting Foreigners with HIV

Deporting foreigners with HIV

It's 2013 and Taiwan still deports foreigners who are HIV-positive1. According to UNAIDS, only 20 countries, territories and areas continue to do so2. The Taiwanese government, usually eager to promote itself as a human-rights focused democracy, now lags another year behind China, which lifted travel bans on foreigners with HIV in 20103. The irony is biting.

Scientific studies have confirmed and reconfirmed how deportation of foreigners with HIV does not protect the public health (see UNAIDS reports)4. Here in Taiwan, Professor Chen Yi-Ming (陳宜民) of the National Yang-Ming University has been quoted in saying, "How can deportation help drive down the infection rate? The link between these two is tenuous"5.

At best, this reveals the Taiwanese government's lingering xenophobia and homophobia. At worst, it breaks families apart and uproots the lives of otherwise productive residents. Article 20 of the HIV Infection Control and Patient Rights Protection Act outlines exceptions to the deportation policy for those "infected by their native spouses or infected through the process of receiving medical care in the country," and those who "have relatives within the second degree of kinship who have household registration in Taiwan." In other words, you can't stay in Taiwan if you don't have immediate family in Taiwan, or if you can't prove that your Taiwanese spouse infected you with the disease. Moreover, without legalized same-sex marriage in Taiwan, a gay man cannot stay in Taiwan with his partner, even if he can prove that his Taiwanese partner infected him.

If the Taiwanese government does not reform this archaic and discriminatory deportation policy in 2013, I fear that the HIV infection rates in Taiwan will continue to climb, because it reveals that the government is too stubborn to refocus its priorities away from surface-level solutions to address the heart of the issue: misinformation about the HIV virus. It was only 2 months ago in September 2012 that the Department of Education effectively forced an elementary school teacher to take an HIV test to prove false an anonymous accusation. If government officials are so misinformed that they believe that an elementary school teacher will infect his students just by sharing a classroom, or that deporting foreigners with HIV will actually reduce the infection rate in Taiwan, then how can we expect the people they govern to know the details of how to prevent the spread of HIV?

To effectively stop HIV, we need policies in Taiwan that encourage residents to get tested and receive treatment, not feel so afraid of the stigma or deportation that they avoid these tests and treatments. Though I hope that 2013 will be the year that Taiwan catches up to China and the rest of the developed world by reforming its regulations on deporting foreigners with HIV, I am not optimistic. I tried to speak with the Centers for Disease Control about this issue, and they declined to comment.

1 Article 18 of the HIV Infection Control and Patients Rights Protection Act reads, "If the test result is positive, the central competent authority shall notify the Ministry of Foreign Affirs or the immigration office to revoke or annul their [the foreigners'] visas or permits of stay or resident, and order them to leave the country (border).

2http://www.unaids.org/en/media/unaids/contentassets/documents/priorities/201207_CountryList_TravelRestrictions_en.pdf

3http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-04/29/content_9788598.htm

4http://www.unaids.org/en/media/unaids/contentassets/dataimport/pub/report/2009/jc1715_report_inter_task_team_hiv_en.pdf

5http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2004/11/09/2003210294

*This post was published in the Taipei Times & on the website of the NGO PRAAT

[lgbtaiwan]

Visiting HIV+ LGBT Seniors

Today I went with a couple of Taiwanese Tongzhi Hotline Association volunteers to pay a visit to Mr. Gong (龔) at an HIV-specific health clinic called 關愛之家.  Mr. Gong is one of many HIV+ seniors in Taiwan who have no remaining families, never married, and never had children.  He said to us today, "your visit will cheer me up for days."

Mr. Gong's father was an important general in the KMT army.  From the Henan Province, he retreated to Hong Kong with his family from during Communist Occupation.  At 10, he left for Taiwan and has stayed here since.  He grew up in a Muslim community, but says he hasn't had the strength to attend the mosque recently.

In a culture where most people rely on their sons and daughters to take care of them when they are older, aging and sickness become particularly difficult and lonely for Taiwanese seniors without children.  I look forward to visiting Mr. Gong again, and hope to hear more stories of his gay escapades from the 60s and 70s.  

[lgbtaiwan]

Workshop with Medical Students at the National Yang Ming University

Today, I went with Chiwei Cheng from the Taiwan Tongzhi Hotline Association to talk with medical students at the National Yang Ming University (one of the top ranked medical universities on the island).

Testament to the impact of comparatively less open discussions of sex in Taiwan than in the D.C. area where I'm from, the students giggled when we asked if they personally knew any LGBTQ people.  They giggled harder when we asked if they thought any of the other medical students were gay.  "Probably not," I heard someone answer.

Here are some of the questions asked when we opened the floor to let the students ask anything on their minds:

- When did you know you were gay?

- How did your parents react?

- How many times have you been in relationships?  (When we asked them this question, most of them responded than they had not yet been in any)

- How can you tell who is gay and who is not?

- Have you ever liked any straight guys?

- Can you change gay guys to become straight?

- What were your feelings when you knew you were gay?

- Why do people want to come out?

If I didn't know any better, it would be shocking to me that most of these Taiwanese medical students did not personally know any LGBTQ people, and equally shocking that they had never discussed these basic questions of sexuality at any earlier point in their lives.

[lgbtaiwan]

Interview Excerpts with the First Gay Rights Activist in Southeast Asia

In 1984, Qi Jia Wei began his life-long campaign to educate the Taiwanese public of safe-sex practices and homosexuality. His home phone became a HIV/gay hotline, and his home became a safe haven for other sick gay men. Sometimes he dressed like Jesus and tied himself to a cross at the Taipei Main Station. Sometimes he would storm into the legislature demanding reforms. Unsurprisingly, he made it onto the Taiwanese newspaper at least once a month, and was jailed for a year and a half. I have known Mr. Qi since March of 2011. Since then, I have become increasingly fascinated by his radical methods, and frustrated by the obscurity of his importance in shaping the gay rights movement in Asia and broader democratic reforms in Taiwan. Allister: When did you "come out?" Qi Jia Wei: I willed myself to be gay. I wasn't originally gay. What do you mean? In high school, I learned the vocabulary word "homosexual" in English class. I always knew I was different from my classmates. Maybe learning this new vocabulary word was a sign from the universe that I was meant to be homosexual. I always liked the girls who had short hair and wore pants anyway. So I told my friends I wanted to be homosexual. We didn't know the word "gay" in Taiwan then. How did your classmates respond? They didn't care. The guys knew that if they had to compete against me for girls, they would lose. How did you get started in grassroots activism? In 1984, I started going to the gay parks and saunas to educate our community about HIV. In 1986, I organized a press conference to discuss the virus with the broader Taiwanese public. Since I was going to talk about HIV, I figured I might as well talk about gay rights alongside. In this way, the first "gay right" I fought for was healthcare. Who did you work with? I was by myself. The other gays I knew were secretive like rats. For 2 years, I discussed with them my plans to launch a gay rights movement in Taiwan. Nobody wanted to help. Two years later, they said to me, "wow you really did it." Some were more cynical, worried that my work would prompt more attention from the police. What was the government's reaction? From 1986 to 1992, I talked to every single Taiwanese legislator to advocate for improved HIV healthcare and same-sex marriage. The education department told me not to teach such "crude" and "perverted" lessons to kids in schools. The police dragged me out of several government departments. Most dismissed my demands as "going against tradition." So what did you do? I turned their interpretations of "tradition" on their heads. During a television interview, I took an idiom regarding filial piety, "if you've done too many bad things in your life, having a son won't save you." "Pi yen" here means "not worth anything," but literally translates to "ass hole." I reinterpreted this idiom to mean, "your son is worthless if you do not have an asshole." Accordingly, the worst thing that can happen to you is that you cannot have anal sex, and you cannot have anal sex if you do not contribute to society, so only people who do good deeds have the opportunity to be gay." How do you think you're remembered today? After 25 years of active full-time campaigning without any allies, people's impressions of me have been terrible and scary. As LGBT NGOs began to form in the late 1990s, they called me an "embarrassment." Did you support the work of these other LGBT NGOs? Of course. I anonymously paid for their water and electricity bills for years. I also think that it was because I as an individual activist was so radical, that the new LGBT NGOs appeared much more tame and mainstream. So is there anything left on your bucket list? To properly love you.

[lgbtaiwan]

Here are some of my reflections on Taipei Pride in the San Diego Gay & Lesbian News.  Your thoughts & responses would be much appreciated!

[lgbtaiwan]

Taipei Pride - October 27, 2012

The Taipei Pride is not a celebration of extravagance or politics. It is a celebration of the "normal" lives of "normal" people. Whereas the Washington D.C. Pride is filled with churches, NGOs, and politicians, and the New York Pride is filled with hot men on glitzy floats, the majority of people in the Taipei Pride walked with groups of friends, dressed in their regular clothes.

That is not to say that Taipei Pride wasn't fun, or that gay marriage was not at the forefront of discussions.  What's different is the method in which the average person so comfortably participated.

[lgbtaiwan]

Taiwanese Hotline Association volunteers demonstrate how to use a finger condom at a press conference in Taipei

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My Thoughts on the August 11th Buddhist Lesbian Wedding

The U.S. press has eaten up the recent same-sex Buddhist wedding in Taiwan (see Huffington Post, Queerty, and Salon.com). The not-legally-recognized-marriage of You Ya-ting and Fish Huang has been hailed as “Historic” by RT and SDGLN.

Although I am also very glad to hear that over 300 monastics helped to officiate a same-sex wedding in Taiwan, I would like to take this opportunity – Americans are interested in the Taiwanese LGBT movement! – to point out several cultural differences that (unfortunately) limit the importance of this event in Taiwan.

First of all, even after I spent a month living at a Buddhist monastery here in Taiwan, I don’t personally know anyone who has gotten a Buddhist wedding. The monastics I met don’t get married, and the laypeople don’t turn to the monastery the same way that Americans turn to the Church to oversee marriages. Buddhism infuses the cultural life of all Taiwanese people, but few people are affiliated with Buddhist (or any other religious) institutions. Religious ideas are really not that significant to Taiwanese people; Confucianism (not a religion) remains the core of our epistemology.

Americans often assume that the debate regarding same-sex marriage is intrinsically tied to religion. This is not exactly the case in Taiwan. Whereas the Bible arguably condemns homosexuality as a sin, no Buddhist texts mention homosexuality either in a positive or negative light. Marriage is not so much a religious ceremony as it is family business.

One retired French Professor at the National Taiwan University once told me that he found Taipei to be more gay-friendly than Paris in the 1970s. How is that possible? In this culture, the pressures against homosexuality do not come from religious or legal institutions to the same degree that we see in the States. Instead, filial piety remains a priority, and pressure from one’s family to fulfill the traditional duty of getting married and having a biological son forms the basis of LGBT individuals’ concerns. The retired French Professor did not have any family in Taiwan, and consequently did not feel the bulk of the pressure that local Taiwanese gays would face for being gay.

I had the opportunity to speak with Master Shih Chao-hui – the leading venerable who officiated last week’s same sex wedding – and she said to me that since wedding on August 11, she has received no opposition from other monastics. Yes, we should celebrate this event, but a Buddhist same-sex wedding does not cut against the grain to the extent that many American readers (and writers) assume it is.

The fight in religious settings is not unimportant in Taiwan, but only to the extent that it brings us closer to fulfilling Taiwanese LGBT individuals’ priority concern: the integration into fulfilling Confucian family duties, duties that do not necessarily rest upon religious or legal recognitions.

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August 29 Update: I sent this piece to the Editor in Chief at San Diego Gay and Lesbian News and he posted it in their Opinions section.

[lgbtaiwan]

施文儀

施文儀 (Shi Wen Yi), Assistant Chief of the Taiwanese Health Bureau, said last week that he did not think public officials should be elected if they discriminated against gays & lesbians.  He argued that the government must step up and legalize same-sex marriage.

This marks an attempt to break the government's silence about same-sex rights.  Though explicit antagonism has not been part of any major political party's platform, few politicians have explicitly supported same-sex rights either.  To break the status quo of invisibility is the goal of many LGBT rights advocates today.

Here is a link to the China Times report.  

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September 6, 2012 Update:

According to Cheng Chiwei of Hotline, Mr. Shi has nonetheless continued to promulgate certain incorrect assumptions.  Mr. Shi has said that passing same-sex marriage would decrease the spread of HIV in Taiwan.  Mr. Cheng argues that it is not a question of getting married or not, but a question of condom use and proper education of safe sex practices.  "Why conflate marriage & HIV?"

[lgbtaiwan]

Free Anonymous HIV and STD Test

The National Taiwan University Medical Center offers free and anonymous blood tests for HIV and syphilis. Though the service did not require any monetary payment, it did require filling out a 5 page questionnaire and sitting through a 20 minute lecture, including photos of victims of syphilis. The nurse’s prevention advice focused on highlighting handjobs as the safetest form of ‘sex’ and using condoms during oral sex. As a foreigner, she also reminded me that I was not legally allowed to stay in Taiwan if I were to test positive for HIV. If you are interested in getting tested at the NTU Medical Center, call [phone] ext 67552.