Taiwan Solidarity Union

At Start of May, Counter-Protestor Assaulted at Taiwan Solidarity Party Demonstration Against Migrant Workers

Andy Liu
At the start of May, during Labor Day weekend, the right-wing Taiwan Solidarity Party (TSP, formerly known as the Taiwan Solidarity Union) held two rallies in Taipei to protest against migrant workers from South and Southeast Asia. The first rally, held in the morning before the Labor Day march, featured a man tabling with an SS insignia on his arm, and a student was arrested for throwing a water balloon at TSP chairwoman Chou, Ni-An (周倪安). The second rally, held the next day, which the TSP, working with the International Association of Family and Employers with Disabilities (IAFED, also known as Taiwan Employers Association),  dubbed “employer’s day,” followed up with the physical assault of a counter protester by a man donning a TSP vest...
EnglishLaborMay 2026PoliticsRaceSocial Movements11 min read

Li Kotomi Comes Out as Transgender After Being Outed by Taiwan’s Anti-Gender Movement

Yo-Ling Chen
Yesterday evening on Transgender Day of Remembrance, critically acclaimed Taiwanese fiction writer Li Kotomi reluctantly issued a public statement disclosing her transgender status after years of being outed, harassed, and doxxed online by anti-gender accounts in Taiwan. Shortly after, Taiwan Tongzhi Hotline Association issued a statement in support of Li. In addition to her personal TDOR statement, Li also co-organized a “Statement by Authors in Japan Opposing LGBTQ+ Discrimination,” which was signed by 51 novelists in Japan and was released earlier in the day. Li’s public response to her outing comes in the wake of yet another surge in anti-gender discourse online and draws attention to the increasingly transnational character of anti-gender mobilizations in Taiwan...
Arts and CultureEnglishGender/SexualityLiterature and PoetryNovember 2024Social Movements12 min read

Taiwan Sees Rise in Anti-Gender Discourse Online

Yo-Ling Chen
October was especially difficult for Taiwan’s transgender community, as a wave of anti-gender discourse flooded social media as a result of Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights’ strategic litigation plaintiff Lisbeth Wu finally changing her legal gender without providing proof of sexual organ removal surgery on October 8th. Wu’s case challenging compulsory surgery for legal gender change was initiated on Transgender Day of Remembrance, 2020 and finally received a favorable ruling by the Taipei High Administrative Court ruling on August 26th earlier this year. Before this court case, TAPCPR began representing Wu in 2018 for her then lawsuit against Chang Gung University for refusing to house her in women’s dormitories, which she won on June 25, 2021...
EnglishGender/SexualityNovember 2024Social Movements12 min read

Transgender Issues Enter Third Party Politics

Yo-Ling Chen
In the past three months, transgender issues have gained unprecedented attention within third party politics in Taiwan, with the Taiwan Solidarity Union rebranding itself as the only political party against abolishing compulsory surgery for changing one’s legal gender and Green Party Taiwan putting forward Taiwan’s first transgender woman to run for office, Abby Wu, as an at-large legislative candidate. This is the first time in Taiwan’s history that transgender issues have been explicitly incorporated into party campaigning. While transgender issues have yet to become a campaign issue in mainstream party politics, the current standoff between the two parties offers a first look into how such politicization would likely play out as the struggle for transgender rights in Taiwan continues...
EnglishGender/SexualityJanuary 2023PoliticsSocial Movements12 min read