Participants march under a giant rainbow flag during the LGBT pride march in Taipei, Taiwan October 26, 2019. Portal/Eason Lam
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TAIPEI, Aug 12 (Portal) – Taiwan on Friday blamed “political considerations” for the cancellation of WorldPride 2025 Taiwan after organizers insisted on removing the word “Taiwan”.
Taiwan participates in global organizations like the Olympics as “Chinese Taipei” to avoid political trouble with China, which regards the democratically-ruled island as its own territory and balks at anything suggesting that it is a separate country .
Taiwan’s southern city of Kaohsiung was set to host WorldPride 2025 Taiwan after winning the right from global LGBTQ rights group InterPride.
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Last year, after an outcry in Taiwan, it dropped a reference to the island as a “region,” language suggesting it’s not a country.
However, organizers from Kaohsiung said InterPride recently “suddenly” asked them to change the event’s name to “Kaohsiung” and remove the word “Taiwan”.
“After careful consideration, it is believed that continuing the event may harm the interests of Taiwan and the Taiwan gay community. Therefore, it is decided to finish the project before signing the contract,” the organizers of Kaohsiung said.
InterPride said in a statement that they were “surprised” to learn the news and while disappointed, they respected the decision.
“We were confident that a compromise could have been reached regarding the longstanding WorldPride tradition of using the host city name. We suggested using the name ‘WorldPride Kaohsiung, Taiwan,'” she added.
Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry said the event was the first WorldPride event in East Asia.
“Taiwan deeply regrets that due to political considerations, InterPride unilaterally rejected the mutually agreed consensus and broke a relationship of cooperation and trust, leading to this outcome,” it said.
“Not only does the decision disregard Taiwan’s rights and diligent efforts, it harms Asia’s vast LGBTIQ+ community and goes against the progressive principles espoused by InterPride.”
Taiwan legalized same-sex marriage for the first time in Asia in 2019 and prides itself on its reputation as a bastion of LGBTQ rights and liberalism.
While same-sex relationships are not illegal in China, same-sex marriages are, and the government cracks down on media portrayals of LGBTQ people and the community’s use of social media.
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writing by Ben Blanchard; Edited by Michael Perry
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