A group of mass communications students from Chinese Culture Universtiy yesterday voiced their support for Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) gender policy, saying that they plan to launch an online petition endorsing Tsai’s gender policy platform to encourage Taiwan to implement policies protecting gay rights.
The students spoke out after Tsai recently announced her gender policy platform, which aims to “promote respect for the rights of people with different gender orientations, to enhance public awareness on gender diversity, to enhance the understanding of government workers on gender diversity” as well as revising laws that are discriminatory to people with non-mainstream gender orientations.
Voicing their support for Tsai’s gender policy agenda, the students urged the public to pay attention to the rights of gay people.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
At the press conference yesterday, one of the students dressed up as Lady Gaga — who is an advocate for gay rights — and danced to her hit song Born This Way.
Convener of the student group Tsai Yu-hui (蔡語慧) said she thinks Tsai Ing-wen is very brave to raise gay-friendly policies before the election, since not many politicians would be willing to do so.
A student surnamed Kuo (郭) said that while President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who is seeking re-election, and Tsai Ing-wen have both previously been questioned about their sexual orientation, only Tsai Ing-wen and the DPP have seriously faced the issue and are more accepting of gender diversity.
Ma, on the other hand, has not done anything concrete to promote gay rights, Kuo said, adding that Minister of Education Wu Ching-ji (吳清基) recently halted a plan to implement a school curriculum on the gay issue based on there being “no social consensus.”
While agreeing with Tsai Ing-wen’s ideas, Tsai Yu-hui said the students hope Tsai Ing-wen will clarify how the DPP plans to meet its gender policy aims.
The group suggested that some concrete measures should include allowing gay marriage, protecting gays’ right to work and implementing a gay-friendly curriculum on campus.
DPP Taipei City Councilor Ho Chi-wei (何志偉), who is also the deputy executive director of Tsai Ing-wen’s Taipei City campaign office, said the DPP has long stood beside disadvantaged groups and promised the DPP would reveal more detailed plans on promoting gay rights in a policy white paper to be released prior to January’s presidential election.
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires