Yo-Ling Chenby Yo-Ling Chen
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Photo Credit: Brian Hioe
Please see our previous article explaining the 2025 Taiwan Pride controversy here.
WITH THE 23RD Taiwan LGBT+ Pride parade set to take place in Taipei this Saturday, new developments have cast further doubts as to whether the Taiwan Rainbow Civil Action Association (TWRCAA, 臺灣彩虹公民行動協會), Taiwan Pride’s main organizer, truly supports transgender and sexual rights.
In response to contemptuous comments against transgender and sexual rights made by TWRCAA employee and Administrative and Public Relations Director of the 2025 Taiwan Pride leadership team Belle Chiu earlier this month, multiple LGBTQ+ community members and organizations have come out in the past two weeks with statements, calls for boycotts, and general calls for LGBTQ+ unity. The TWRCAA’s formal response to the controversy on October 10th was met with mixed reception, as the organization’s stated commitment to organizing a transgender-inclusive Pride parade was overshadowed by the fact that Belle Chiu remains a part of the 2025 Taiwan Pride leadership team. Furthermore, the TWRCAA’s October 10th statement did not address concerns that the organization was wavering in their support of sexual rights.
TWRCAA Stands By Decision to Table 6 Color Manifesto This Year
IN THE EARLY evening of October 15th, the TWRCAA issued their formal statement regarding the “6 Colors Manifesto.” In the statement, the TWRCAA explained the historical significance and context of the “red procession” portion of the Manifesto that deals with sexual rights and abolishing laws that have been used to clamp down on sexual autonomy.
During the 6th Taiwan LGBT+ Pride parade in 2008, organizers issued the 6 Colors Manifesto and specifically named three laws that were used to arrest LGBT+ community members at the time: Article 80 of the Social Order Maintenance Act, which makes “sexual transactions” and “Soliciting with the intent to commit prostitution in public places” a fineable offense; then Articles 29 and 80 (now Article 40) of the Child and Youth Sexual Exploitation Prevention Act, which criminalizes any form of public communication deemed to “cause a child or a youth to be in danger of being subjected to sexual exploitation”; and Article 235 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of China, which criminalizes the distribution and display of “obscene writing, picture, audio record, video record, or any other object to another person.”
The TWRCAA emphasized in their statement that the red procession portion on sexual rights against these three laws in the 6 Colors Manifesto has led to many misunderstandings and false accusations that Taiwan Pride “supports the sexual exploitation of children, pedophilia, and the legalization of child pornography.” Furthermore, reference was made to an incident in 2015 when the Family Guardian Coalition (台灣宗教團體愛護家庭大聯盟), an anti-LGBT+ religious right coalition that mobilized against marriage equality, criticized Taiwan Pride for advocating the abolition of these three laws as tantamount to “causing prostitution and the normalization of distributing sexually explicit materials, as well as causing more vulnerable children to be pushed into the abyss of pornographic culture” (如果這些法律廢除了，將會使嫖妓、散播猥褻物獲得正當性，而且也將會讓更多弱勢兒少被推向色情文化的深淵). Hence, the TWRCAA decided to take down the 6 Colors Manifesto last year and internally discuss how to revise the Manifesto to be more in line with a new strategy for public messaging on sexual rights that would be more appropriate for the contemporary.
In response to fears that the TWRCAA was abandoning sexual rights altogether, the organization assured statement readers that “[we] will not overlook the universal value of ‘sexual rights as human rights’ in our revised edition of the 6 Colors Manifesto” (臺灣同志遊行亦不會因為將改版六色宣言，即忽視「性權即人權」之普世價值); furthermore, the TWRCAA added that “We believe the true essence of sexual liberation lies in allowing every individual to freely and autonomously ‘choose’ the kind of sex they want––including the option of ‘no sex’––without facing any insitutional or structure oppression or discrimination” (我們認為：讓每個人都能不受限制、自主地「選擇」想要的性，亦包含「無性」之選項，而不遭受任何制度性或結構性之壓迫或歧視，這才是「性解放」之真諦).
Lastly, the TWRCAA stated that “after this year’s parade ends, we will invite all partner organizations to discuss together how to reinterpret the meaning of the six-color rainbow to be more in alignment with the current social context” (我們將於今年遊行結束後邀請各個友團共同商討，以重新詮釋符合當前社會背景之六色彩虹意義).
On October 19th, the Taiwan Gender Queer Rights Advocacy Alliance (TGQRAA, 台灣酷兒權益推動聯盟) issued a response statement that criticized the TWRCAA’s framing of the 6 Colors Manifesto for being “an old historical document” that is not fit for contemporary times. Similar to previous statements made by Hand Angel (手天使) and the Taiwan Sex Industry & Workers’ Rights Association (性產業勞動者權益推動協會), TGQRAA emphasized that the aforementioned articles of the Social Order Maintenance Act, Child and Youth Sexual Exploitation Prevention Act, and Criminal Code of the Republic of China continue to be used today to suppress sexual rights. Furthermore, in direct response to concerns that the 6 Colors Manifesto is prone to misunderstand, TGQRAA criticized the TWRCAA for citing societal misunderstanding as the rationale for taking down the 6 Colors Manifesto this year and urged Taiwan’s LGBT+ movement to engage in societal dialogue and deepen educational initiative on sexual rights instead of compromising to misunderstanding by tabling sexual rights in this year’s parade messaging. “Only by clearly explaining the historical significance and context of the evil laws against sexual rights represented by the red procession portion of the original 6 Colors Manifesto can be prevent misunderstandings” (清晰闡釋原版宣言中「紅色」所代表的性權惡法脈絡與歷史意義，才能避免誤解).
TWRCAA’s Stated Support of Transgender Rights Comes Under Scrutiny, Former TWRCAA Transgender Chairperson Speaks Out about Why She Left
ON OCTOBER 16TH, the Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights (TAPCPR, 台灣伴侶權益推動聯盟) issued their statement in response to the TWRCAA’s October 10th statement. TAPCPR shared that “we think that the TWRCAA’s apology has not actually addressed the core of the problem that has sparked anger and controversy.” As the organization that has been spearheading strategic litigation efforts the past five years to abolish compulsory surgery for legal gender change, TAPCPR shared in their statement that they formally invited the TWRCAA to join their petition to abolish compulsory surgery earlier this year and attempted to engage in internal dialogue with the organization through the TWRCAA’s transgender chairperson at the time. Ultimately, the TWRCAA declined to join TAPCPR’s petition, and the transgender chairperson later resigned. Given this context, TAPCPR stated that they do not believe that the Belle Chiu “PR crisis” is not an isolated incident that efforts to “strengthen education training amongst employees” (as the TWRCAA promised in their October 10th statement) can address, but rather represents long-standing internal divisions within the TWRCAA when it comes to transgender rights.
In their statement, TAPCPR cited the global peak in anti-trans forces following the election of Donald Trump in the United States and the efforts of LGB Alliance Taiwan to separate “LGB” from “TI+” (transgender, intersex, +) as both representing a doubling-down on biological essentialism when it comes to gender and sexuality, which is a primary source of discrimination and oppression for transgender people today. In light of this context, TAPCPR invited the TWRCAA to formally state their position transgender peoples’ right to gender self-determination and to clarify their organization’s relationship to anti-gender movements and organizations. At the time of releasing their statement, TAPCPR had not received any response from the TWRCAA. Hence, TAPCPR announced that they are cancelling their table registration at this year’s Taiwan Pride and refusing to pay any table registration fees. “The reason is simple,” TAPCPR stated, “we are not willing to give any funds to an organization that still has reservations on the issue of transgender peoples’ basic human rights” (我們不願意將任何資源挹注給一個對「跨性別者基本人權議題」尚有存疑的組織).
Similar to the stated positions of other organizations such as Taiwan Non-binary Queer Sluts (TWNBQS, 台灣非二元酷兒浪子) and Hand Angel, TAPCPR also said that they will still attend this year’s Taiwan Pride parade in a spirit of protest and cordially invited every person who supports abolishing compulsory surgery for legal gender change and transgender peoples’ right to gender self-determination to walk with them.
Two days after TAPCPR released their statement, Lisbeth Wu, a high-profile transgender activist who has been a focal point of anti-transgender discourse online and was the TWRCAA transgender chairperson mentioned in TAPCPR’s statement, made a public Facebook post sharing her experience of and reasons for leaving the TWRCAA. Given how litigious Taiwanese society is when it comes to slander and libel lawsuits, Wu was very careful not to name any names in her public statement.
Wu shared that since March of this year when she accepted her position as TWRCAA Chairperson for this year’s Taiwan Pride, she noticed that “employee A” would frequently roll their eyes at her whenever she spoke during meetings. Furthermore, Wu stated that “employee A” almost caused a PR crisis during a discussion with other volunteers due to this employee’s “explosive language” (爆言). When TAPCPR invited TWRCAA to sign their petition to abolish compulsory surgery, “employee A” accused Wu of using the TWRCAA and Taiwan Pride for personal gain. Due to this accusation, a TWRCAA board member called Wu and “employee A” into a mediation meeting. During this mediation meeting, “employee A” had misgivings towards Wu’s suggestion that this employee “be more cautious and considerate about their speech when chatting with volunteers, even after formal working hours” (「與志工聊天發言，即便是下班場合也需要斟酌」). Nothing came of this mediation meeting.
“The main reason I left the TWRCAA,” Wu explained, “was because after communication attempts yielded no results, I expressed my concerns [about employee A] to the Board of Directors and stated that if these issues were not taken seriously and discussed, they could very well lead to chaos or a larger incident” (在溝通未果後，我向理監事會提出了這些擔憂，並表示上述情事如果沒好好正視或討論，很可能造成混亂局面或議題炎上). After Wu expressed these concerns to the Board of Directors, a senior board member openly scolded Wu in a Board of Directors chat group, accusing her of “using this incident to emotionally blackmail everyone” (「藉此事件來情勒所有人」). This senior board member then put forth a recall motion to remove Wu from her position as Chairperson. Wu resigned from her position as TWRCAA Chairperson in early September.
Student Groups Mobilize in Support of Transgender Rights and Against All Forms of Oppression
OVER THE PAST few days, an alliance of student groups have come together to issue a joint statement and petition calling on other students to join them in attending Taiwan Pride this year in a spirit of protest, supporting transgender rights, and standing against all forms of oppression. The joint statement and petition was issued by NTU Labor Club (臺大勞工社), NTU Dalawasao Club (台灣大學濁水溪社), Soochow University Gender Studies Club (東吳大學性別研究社), Losheng Youth Alliance (青年樂生聯盟), NCCU Seed Club (政大種子社), NCCU Wildfire Front (政大野火陣線), NCCU Gender Studies Club (政大陸仁賈性別研究社), Action to Defend Student Rights in Taiwan (捍衛全台學權行動), and NTNU Humanities Club (台師大人文學社).
In their statement, student organizers criticized trans-exclusion within Taiwan’s LGBTQIA+ community and the TWRCAA’s decision to table the 6 Colors Manifesto this year; they called instead for intra-LGBTQIA+ solidarity amongst all peoples who are oppressed because of their gender identity and/or sexual orientation. Student organizers went a step further and call for Taiwan Pride to embrace a politics of “intersectional solidarity” (交織性的團結) with other oppressed groups, stating that organizations representing the working class, migrant workers, refugees, and people with disabilities have attended Taiwan Pride for years. Their joint statement also explicitly criticized Israel’s pinkwashing tactics and illegal occupation of Palestinian territories, as well as apartheid and genocide enacted upon Palestinians, and made calls for “listening to the voices of queer Palestinians.”
Student organizers stated that they have organized a “pro-trans” student contingent in the yellow procession of this year’s Taiwan Pride parade and invited “everyone who supports the rights of oppressed and marginalized groups” to join them. In this moment, student organizers exhorted, “it is even more necessary that we take to the streets in the hopes of gathering together the voices of all oppressed peoples in solidarity; supporting transgender people, Palestinian people, and all the groups who experience oppression; and finding the path for a holistic ‘anti-oppression movement.’”
Tension and the Possibility of Protests Surround 2025 Taiwan Pride
GIVEN THESE RECENT developments, especially the shocking revelations from Lisbeth Wu about the extent of internal division within the TWRCAA around transgender rights, 2025 Taiwan Pride is bound to be one of historic tension. While there have been no announcements of any group formally protesting Taiwan Pride this year, multiple groups (TWNBQS, TAPCPR, Hand Angel, student groups, etc.) have already expressed that they will be marching in this year’s pride carrying signage that is critical of the TWRCAA’s wavering support for transgender and sexual rights.
It should be noted, however, that there are TWRCAA members who have come out in firm support of transgender and sexual rights. For instance, in a recent Facebook post, TWRCAA member Ting Deng posted a photo of a vertical banner design that they will presumably bring to Taiwan Pride stating: “I am a TWRCAA member, I support transgender people” and “I am a TWRCAA member, I support sexual rights.”
Photo posted on Facebook by Ting Deng
It remains to be seen whether any anti-transgender groups will attend Taiwan Pride this year, such as LGB Alliance Taiwan, who attended last year’s Taiwan Pride parade without formally registering. As the controversy around Taiwan Pride this year deepens, the possibility of protests rises.