Having a romance, joining a school club and getting a part-time job are said to be three required courses for all Taiwanese university students. Since the academic year has just begun, it is time again for students to choose a club to join. For lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students, however, universities continue to use technicalities to block the establishment of LGBT student clubs.
As the Gender Equity Education Act (性別平等教育法) states: “Schools shall provide a gender-fair learning environment, respect and give due consideration to students, faculty, and staff with different gender, gender temperaments, gender identity, and sexual orientation.”
The fact that the government and schools fail to ensure a fair learning environment for all has clearly highlighted the necessity of such clubs.
Photo: Su Ching-feng, Taipei Times
BUILDING FRIENDLY CAMPUSES
The nation’s first gay student club, NTU GayChat (台大男同性戀社), was established by National Taiwan University (NTU) students in 1993. Although the school approved their application, it forced them to name it “gay issues study club” (男同性戀問題研究社) at first, so as to spin it as an academic group to reduce controversy.
Two years later, students established NTU Lambda (台大浪達社), the nation’s first lesbian student club. To avoid drawing too much attention at school, the club was named after the Greek letter “λ” (lambda) — an international symbol for LGBT rights. By doing so, faculty and students would not know instantly that it is a lesbian group.
Photo: Lai Hsiao-tung, Taipei Times
“The club is meant to build a friendly environment for gay students, whether members or not,” said GayChat secretary Little Jie (小杰), a pseudonym, during a television interview, adding that straight students are welcome too.
The club provides lectures on various LGBT issues every Friday and some leisure activities at the beginning and end of each semester. It also holds birthday parties for members regularly to create a friendly atmosphere.
In June 1995, GayChat and Lambda jointly launched the first Gay and Lesbian Awakening Day (GLAD, 校園同志甦醒日) campaign to raise awareness on campuses across Taiwan. In recent years, many LGBT student clubs at different universities have taken turns organizing the annual GLAD party in May or June, along with LGBT forums, film festivals and other activities, while forming a student non-governmental organization.
Meanwhile, the Internet has allowed more LGBT students to create online gay and lesbian boards on the Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) of their universities, which could then be transformed into LGBT student clubs.
Over the past 20 years, club members have worked hard to protect equal rights, eliminate discrimination, oppression and bullying, push for gay-friendly legislation, promote safe sex and develop educational materials through their groups. Also, they have actively participated in and contributed to the LGBT rights movement in Taiwan outside the campus.
CHALLENGES REMAIN
Today, many universities and some senior high schools have their own LGBT student clubs, both official and unofficial. However, operating these clubs is not easy, even at more liberal schools like NTU.
Chen Ling (陳凌), a former Lambda president, says that many gay and lesbian students fear coming out due to family, school and social pressure.
“A member once asked me to keep my voice down during our conversation at school, worrying that teachers and schoolmates would find out that she is lesbian,” Chen says.
And some school officials are against LGBT students and clubs. When National Chengchi Universty (NCCU) students established the NCCU Lu Ren Jia LGBTQQIA Club (政大陸仁賈) in 1997, they would occasionally hold on-campus activities using the name of another club to avoid school interference. Although the situation has gradually improved, members complain that some school employees refuse to help them promote club affairs.
The unfavorable situation facing LGBT students can be worse at universities funded by religious groups. In 2013, almost 100 LGBT students staged a protest at Fu Jen Catholic University (FJU) after Taiwan’s 17 Catholic and Christian universities issued an open letter opposing same-sex marriage. They also accused the school of denying their application for establishing gay and lesbian student clubs, which have operated underground for years.
Last year, FJU’s “unofficial” lesbian student club planned to hold a speech. But school officials quickly tore down the posters before the event because they were worried that the speaker would “teach the audience how to become homosexual.”
At a time when student clubs recruit new blood, university officials are violating the Gender Equity Education Act if they continue to harass or ban LGBT student clubs. The Ministry of Education could improve the situation by including this in their school evaluations.
A more effective way would be for members of LGBT student clubs to actively join gender equality committees and students’ associations so as to make their voices heard, while pushing for reform within the school system. Hopefully that would speed up the creation of a fair learning environment for all.
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
Relations between Taiwan and the Czech Republic have flourished in recent years. However, not everyone is pleased about the growing friendship between the two countries. Last month, an incident involving a Chinese diplomat tailing the car of vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) in Prague, drew public attention to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) operations to undermine Taiwan overseas. The trip was not Hsiao’s first visit to the Central European country. It was meant to be low-key, a chance to meet with local academics and politicians, until her police escort noticed a car was tailing her through the Czech capital. The
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless