This weekend was the first time in 19 years that a Pride parade was not held in Taipei, as the festivities were moved online due to COVID-19 precautions. However, the spirit remained the same, as the LGBTQ community took the opportunity to remind people to respect and understand them.
There are still unresolved issues regarding LGBTQ rights after the legalization of same-sex marriage in Taiwan in 2019, including adoption rights, but there has been progress in these areas over the past year.
The first transnational same-sex couple got married in August, and in September, a transgender woman was allowed for the first time to alter the gender on her ID card without providing proof of sex reassignment surgery.
However, while government policies can change, societal attitudes toward the LGBTQ community often prove more stubborn. The Chinese-language themes of the Taiwan Trans March — now in its third year — and the Pride parade allude to this: the former called for people to “step out their prejudices and celebrate together online” (跨出偏見，異同上線), while the latter asked people to be friendly toward LGBTQ people in their everyday lives (友善日常).
As Taiwan Rainbow Civil Action Association chairman Fletcher Hong (小鯨) said before the event: “We often see areas, such as in shops or restrooms, labeled as ‘gender friendly’ spaces, but the purpose is that people can be themselves instead of having them as a place of refuge... We need to make being ‘friendly’ a part of our daily, normal lives.”
“Daily, normal life” can range from interactions with family members — especially regarding coming out — and how people look at LGBTQ people in public, to microaggressions and other uncomfortable situations or inconveniences they might encounter at school or in the workplace.
Often these are not acts of overt discrimination, but instead transgressions stemming from a glaring lack of awareness that pervades Taiwanese society regarding not just the LGBTQ community, but all of the nation’s minorities.
However, these groups are no longer staying silent.
The numbers support the association’s pleas. For example, a poll by Hotels.com showed that one-third of LGBTQ travelers to Taiwan have refrained from certain behaviors to avoid attention, while 43 percent felt obliged to tone down their interaction with their partner or to disguise their relationship in public. When they did show affection, 32 percent said they were stared at by hotel staff. The same percentage said they were prevented from using some hotel facilities due to their sexual orientation.
These do not mean LGBTQ rights have not improved at all in Taiwan — the same poll shows that more than 70 percent of travelers felt more confident and safe to disclose their gender identity or sexual orientation compared with three years ago.
However, progress should not stop there. A pair of articles on Womany.com last month featured lesbians who were faced with bias or were asked uncomfortable questions at urologists and ob-gyns.
Again, this likely comes from a lack of awareness and understanding of same-sex sexual behavior on the physicians’ part, but it is one of the many little things in everyday life that LGBTQ people have to deal with — and gender-normative people do not.
This sort of change takes time even after the laws are changed, but that is exactly why these issues should be continuously emphasized.
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