Ahead of the annual Taiwan Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Pride Parade in Taipei on Saturday, dozens of National Taiwan University (NTU) students from various student organizations yesterday held their own version of the LGBT parade on campus, to raise awareness among students on gay rights issues.
Chanting slogans and beating on drums, the “Small LGBT Pride Parade,” as the organizers called their event, drew the attention of their fellow students as they marched through the campus, with some students giving them the thumbs-up or joining them along the way.
The event was organized by several student groups, including the NTU Students Association, the NTU Women’s Studies Society and the NTU Gay Students’ Association.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
“We want to send a message to our fellow students to raise awareness about gay rights issues and to end discrimination against lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people,” NTU Student Association academic affairs director Chen Liang-fu (陳亮甫) told a news conference before the parade began. “We think it’s very important that people receive accurate information about gender diversity.”
Another member of the student organization, who only wished to be known by his surname, Yang (楊), said that the action was inspired by discrimination they had seen in society.
“For instance, a lot of people still think that only gay people can get AIDS and that they are banned from donating blood,” Yang said. “This is dangerous, because it could lead to heterosexuals thinking that they cannot get AIDS and overlook the necessary preventive measures when having sex.”
The groups called for gender diversity education in elementary and junior-high schools, legalizing homosexual partnerships, gender-friendly dormitories and toilets on campus, and the promotion of gender diversity on campus.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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