Queer feminist assemblages against far-right anti- “Anti-Discrimination Law” in South Korea

Abstract

Anti-feminist, anti-Queer politics, and Christianity have long been allies in South Korea fervently against any progressive movement involving women and sexual minorities. Since the 2010s, the societal context has shifted to include the long recession and neoliberal structural reforms after the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. As a result, far-right religious groups never cease attempts to divide society based on gender, sexuality, and the Anti-Discrimination Law” To prevent “sexual orientation” from being protected under the Anti-Discrimination Act, these groups accused sexual minorities and members of advocacy groups of being pro-North Korea and pro-communist. The anti- LGBTQ groups furthered their discourse in the name of “protecting national security;” simultaneously, sexual minorities and family members of the shipwreck victims, migrant workers, and even disabled persons were treated as “non-nationals” and “pro-North Korea.” Against this backdrop, Queer feminist assemblage provides creative ways to articulate the controversies, with the alliance and lived experiences of minorities.

Keywords:

• anti-Discrimination act
• feminist
• LGBTQA+
• misogynistic
• South Korea

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 Including medical history, national origin, language, educational background, family status, and criminal history.

2 Notes on the terms: “sexual minority” comes from the well-circulated Korean term “성소수자,” which refers to lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender people, queer people, local “iban 이반,” and people who have HIV and/or AIDS. It is interchangeable with “퀴어,” the transliterated term for English “queer,” which is used in related activist organization and events such as KSCRC and KQCF. To specify the usage of “queer” in Korean context, them will be capitalized in this article.

3 The Christian Liberal Party (기독자유당) was established on March 3, 2016. In April, the party stated that the voters should “support [the] CLP to protect our families from homosexuality and Muslims” in an advertisement for the 2016 parliamentary elections.

4 The coined term comes from the book The 880,000 Won Generation, co-authored by economist Woo Suk-hun (우석훈) and social activist Park Kwon-il (박권일) in 2007. It refers to the generation born in the late 1970s to the mid-1980s (approximately 1977-1986), who are well-educated but face severe difficulties in finding stable, long-term jobs, living with roughly USD750 monthly payment.

5 The neologism first appeared in the Kyunghyang Shinmun (경향신문) in 2011, referring to a generation that gives up romance, marriage, and childbirth.

6 The film was completed in 2015 and screened at a documentary film festival. The theatrical version was released in major South Korean cinemas on July 20, 2017.

7 The shipwreck occurred on April 16, 2014. The MV Sewol passenger ship was carrying 476 people and sailing from Incheon Port to Jeju Island when it capsized; 325 of the passengers were students from Danwon High School in Ansan City. In the end, a total of 304 passengers and crew members were killed. According to public opinion, governmental agencies were opaque with information and shirked their respective responsibilities when it came to disaster relief and follow-up processing, leading to an unusually high number of victims.

8 Source: National Institute of Korean Language (국립국어원 2019). All definitions of quoted words are from the online version of this resource.

9 However, Butler also becomes the target for the far-religious right group’s rebuke in South Korea. On August 30, 2021, the EBS (Educational Broadcast Service) released the educational series entitled “Great Minds,” featuring world-renowned intellectuals, to general audiences, including Butler as the fourth lecturer. Before the release, audience complaints flooded in to the EBS homepage from Christian-, parent-, and male-oriented groups, who protested and claimed that Butler was an advocate of pedophilia and incest, and that it was unethical. Nonetheless, the EBS declared those allegations groundless, and the lectures were aired as scheduled.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Pei Jean Chen

Eno Pei Jean Chen is an assistant professor of Taiwanese Literature at National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan. She received her PhD degree from the Dept. of Asian Studies, Cornell University in May 2016. Her current book project, Cultural Politics of Love: Colonial Genealogy of Modern Intimate Relationships in Taiwan and Korea, offers a new cultural history of colonial world order through inter-referencing Taiwanese and Korean construction of modern love and sexuality, and their historical responses to Western and Japanese imperialism. She is working on a subsequent book project “Cold War Feelings,” which focuses on the legacies of colonialism and the cold war ideology of gender normalization, sexuality, and affect in postwar Taiwan and South Korea. Her research and commentary have appeared in Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Router, Bulletin of Taiwanese Literature, The Margins (AAWW), Journal of Taiwan Literary Studies, ARTCO, and Culture Studies Monthly.