Hidden Voices, S2: South Korea

“People in South Korea do not want to be different or individuals, it is almost shocking to see how people want to think the same way”

In this episode, we speak to Kyu (He/Him) a gay man from South Korea. Kyu talks about his time living as a gay man in his nation-state as well as the USA and Moscow. He speaks to us about his own personal during and the barriers and resistance for the LGBTQ community in South Korea. Read below to hear more about him:

“Being a homosexual is not illegal in South Korea, our religion is similar to Christianity. Korean’s think same-sex is from our western culture, so they believe it came from the west and it’s mostly accepted. Although Korea lacks education about the LGBT community, we do not really learn about different cultures here. It is not good at accepting things that are different and accepting differences. Koreans do not really know the difference between transgender and drag performer, even gay people do not, people see them as a performer and more like it’s a psychological problem. There is certain areas that are expected to have more gay bars which are very western but then other areas do have gay bars but they are more hidden, you can tell a gay bar in South Korea if it says membership only on a sign. However, there became an issue with gay clubs when COVID happened due to tracking people, if an outbreak happened in a club people were then outed for their sexuality.”