Crip-queer intimacy, alliance and activism: towards holistic sexuality education in Taiwan

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the significance of sexuality education for individuals with disabilities in Taiwan. It highlights the importance of understanding sexuality as a fundamental aspect of identity, encompassing intimate relationships and connection to others. Since the implementation of the Gender Equity Education Act in 2004, Taiwan has made efforts to include comprehensive sexuality education in the school curriculum and integrate disabled students into mainstream education. However, disabled individuals still face barriers due to ableism and heteronormativity, which impede their access to sexual and reproductive health services, including sexuality education. To address this issue, we conducted a qualitative investigation using narrative and policy data, drawing on Scott’s phenomenology of nothingness and crip theory to explore the intersection of sexualities and disabilities in educational contexts. Our findings reveal that individuals with disabilities in Taiwan often rely on pornography and other erotic materials as informal sources of sex education. Hand Angels, a volunteer-based group established in 2013, has been actively promoting sexual rights within disability rights organisations, advocating for a comprehensive, sex-positive, pleasure-focused, and rights-based approach to sexuality education. However, there are still gaps in knowledge production and policy implementation, which systematically deny people with disabilities their right to sexual agency.

KEYWORDS:

• (dis)ableism
• Hand Angels
• human rights
• intersectionality
• sexuality education
• special education

Acknowledgments

We thank Poyao Huang and JhuCin Jhang from the National Taiwan University for their valuable comments, as well as Chong-Min Su and others who assisted us throughout the study process. We owe a debt of gratitude to study participants for sharing their voices in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. Disability studies uses both ‘person-first’ (e.g. people with disabilities) and ‘identity-first’ (e.g. disabled people) phraseology. Researchers vary in their agreement on this matter, depending on the stance they take with respect to disability politics. The phrase ‘people with disabilities’ emphasises the common humanity shared by people with and without disabilities, and the term ‘disabled people’ sees disability as part of an identity construct and membership in minority politics (Campbell, Löfgren-Mårtenson, and Santinele Martino 2020). In this paper, we use both phraseologies depending on the context. The term ‘crip’ is also used, as is the term ‘queer’ in writing, to interrogate the discursive realities taken for granted as ‘the normal’ (McRuer 2006).

2. Throughout the process, we referred to participants as ‘partners’ with the goal of seeing the data collection process as that of co-learning with community members. Hence, the core of the study lay in human connection, trust, and uncovering ableist practices in society and among researchers. However, to avoid confusion regarding methodological terminologies, we use the terms ‘participants’ and ‘interviewees’, which are used more often in reporting qualitative work.

Additional information

Funding

This work was an integral part of Stephanie Torres Celis’ Master’s degree dissertation submitted as part of the National Taiwan University Global Health Program, which partly funded the research process. This study is also partially supported by the Population Health Research Center from Featured Areas Research Center Program within the framework of the Higher Education Sprout Project by the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Taiwan (Grant No. NTU-112L9004).