Queer Communities and Activism in South Korea: Periphery-Center Currents

ABSTRACT

Research into South Korea’s LGBT+ communities is growing but still very limited, especially regarding communities in Busan and other urban areas outside the capital city, Seoul. We collected and analyzed responses from young LGBT+ who resided in the periphery and center and who described the two communities, their activist tactics, the connections/separations between them, and periphery-center characteristics of dialogue with opponents and participation in Korea’s conservative, evangelical Christian churches. We reveal attitudinal and behavioral differences between Seoul and Busan (and other outlying areas), and we suggest that the differences reflect, in part, physical, social, and psychological distances between LGBT+ residing in the periphery and center. In time, outlying areas may converge with the center, imitating, though perhaps incompletely, Seoul’s strong identity activism and more integrated community, or the periphery may pursue an independent, local identity.

KEYWORDS:

• LGBTQI
• South Korea
• gay
• lesbian
• Christian
• same-sex marriage
• activism

Acknowledgments

We thank the anonymous Journal of Homosexuality reviewers and the editor, John P. Elia, for their invaluable comments on an earlier version of this article. We also thank Johnny Ha, Sungbin Kim, and Tae-yeon Kwon who provided indispensable assistance with data collection. Any inaccuracies are our own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. We use “LGBT+” and “queer” interchangeably. The article also uses the common terminology for groups within this community (e.g., Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, Bisexual, Queer) (Chingusai, 2014).

2. We recognize that the LGBT+ is not a single “community,” but, for our study’s purposes, we sometimes refer to the Busan or Seoul community.

3. The LGBTI survey (Chingusai, 2014) sampled 3,159 online respondents, with respondents under age 30 making up 72% of the nonprobability sample. This suggests that at least younger persons are increasingly willing to reveal their sexual identities to researchers.

4. “S” refers to residents of the Seoul capital area; “B” refers to Busan residents; respondents from other outlying cities are specifically identified (e.g., 13 Sokcho Gangwon-do). Appendix A (Table) 1 states the personal characteristics of each of the otherwise anonymous respondents (gender/sexuality, age, occupation, and political activism).

5. We recognize that Busan and Seoul cannot be characterized as rural-urban, which is the dichotomy described in some periphery-center literature, such as Kazyak (2011). However, the same dichotomies found in Kazyak’s rural-urban study of LGBT+ are useful in our analysis of periphery-center differences in Korea’s LGBT+ community.

6. “Busan” is the current romanization of the city’s name. An earlier spelling, “Pusan,” remains in some official names and continues to be used by some Koreans.

7. Notably, two of these three exceptions were in the Seoul capital area, not Seoul proper (16S and 20S), which places them somewhat closer to the periphery space.

8. Resp. 4B, 10B, 11B, 13 Sokcho Gangwon-do, 15 Daejeon, 17 Gunsan-si, 22B, 24B-25B, 28 Chuncheon-si, and 30B.

9. One organizer offered an alternative explanation: Conservative dress may have reflected chilly September weather, walking distance from the subway to the festival, and concern that the police would not protect protesters (Resp. 7B).

10. An older respondent (age 45), and the only LGBT+ foreigner, discussed a generational divide:

The Korean gays of my generation (more than 35 years old) are very conservative [and] financially stable, and some of them [have] partners. This bulk of the gay population has the money to support the movement but not the interest because they [are] used to liv[ing] in the closet and coming out [of] it is not a big issue for them. However, the new young generation has the energy but not the money and the resources to make a big impact in society….[There are] no communications between both generations (Resp. 28 Chuncheon-si).

Whether this generational divide is more pronounced outside Seoul’s relatively open queer environment warrants further study.

11. Resp. 1B-9B, 12S, 13 Sokcho Gangwon-do, 14S, 15 Daejeon, 17 Gunsan-si, 18S, 19S, 20S-21S, 22B-23B, 26B, 28 Chuncheon-si, 29S, and 34B.

Additional information

Funding

This article was supported by Hanyang University Research Fund.