In his video message to the U.N. Human Rights Council on Violence and Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity (March 7, 2012), U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued the following plea with respect to LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) rights worldwide: “We must stop the violence, decriminalize same-sex relationships, ban discrimination, and educate the public.”

Speaking directly to LGBTs, the secretary-general emphasized with a shake of a fist, “Let me say, you are not alone. Your struggle for an end to violence and discrimination is a shared struggle. Any attack on you is an attack on the universal values [that] the U.N. and I have sworn to defend and uphold. Today, I stand with you and I call upon all countries and peoples to stand with you, too.”

For LGBTs living in Korea, the secretary-general’s message represented a flicker of hope for the future of LGBT rights in a country where silence and dismissal has been the rule with respect to sexual minorities.

With only sporadic media attention given for the purpose of a single day’s entertainment or sensationalism rather than any earnest concern for LGBT human rights, the Korean media, while reporting frenziedly about European teenagers shouting over K-pop idols, and touting this as a major advance for the globalization of Korean culture, has by contrast completely ignored Korean-American activist Dan Choi, who arguably has done more to inspire human rights globally than any other person of Korean descent in recent memory.

My experience as a graduate student at a Korean university has brought me face to face with Korean attitudes to sexual minorities, and has proven to me that it is not merely silence or “absence of discourse” that hinders the advancement of the LGBT rights cause in Korea; but rather, active prejudicial practices.

For example, while in a graduate course on feminism, a female professor at my university forbade a student to write her term paper on lesbian identities, dismissing the idea with an air of distaste.

In my own department of Korean literature, understandings of homosexuality are based entirely in medicalized discourses of “sexual perversion” which Korean scholars apply without reserve to authors who have written same-sex themes, such as Yi Kwang-su and Yi Hyo-seok.

In one literature seminar seeking to locate a “pure Korean identity” by purifying (cheongsan) literature from all Western influence, a professor used the term “seong tochak” (sexual perversion) without a second thought.

And in none of the above cases do the Korean graduate students, aged in their 20s and 30s, even blink an eye. Indeed, everywhere that homosexuality appears in Korean literature, scholarly criticism reveals the sole influence of medicalized sexuality, an identical twin to medicalized notions of racism that emerged out of Western (and Japanese) imperialist discourses rationalizing domination over “inferior peoples.”

While Korean scholars write virulent volumes against colonial racism, they do not hesitate to reproduce those same concepts and terminologies and direct them at sexual minorities.

In Korea, homosexuality is not oppressed only by a conspiracy of silence, but a plethora of ignorance. Groups like Peoples Alliance for a Correct Sexual Culture and National Gathering of Mothers for Proper Education were given nearly a full page of newspaper space by an influential vernacular daily in 2010 to spread ridiculous homophobic statements like “If my son turns gay and dies of AIDS, it’s SBS’s fault!” after the airing of a gay-themed drama seeking to show the human side of Korean gay men.

While allowing these groups to present exaggerated or false statistics to the public along with the notion that homosexuality is “learned” like a sport (or contracted like a disease), the daily did not take the responsibility of representing any another perspective alongside the offensive discriminatory ad. Because homosexuality is usually only represented by Korean media when the picture is negative or sensationalistic, it is no wonder that numerous attempts to include LGBT rights on social rights legislation at the National Assembly always ends up in failure.

And the problem does not stop at the Korean border. With increased popularity of courses on Korean language and culture at foreign universities, more Korean academics are now going abroad to teach, and carrying their attitudes about homosexuality with them. I was told by a Korean professor in the States, for example, that “there are no homosexuals in Korea,” and such ignorance tends to be tolerated by non-Korean professors and students in foreign countries, who do not wish to broach issues “sensitive” to Korean culture.

Unless Secretary-General Ban’s proclamation is just more technocratic effluvium with no real underlying concern or sincerity, his words signal that it is now time for a forceful initiative to finally rid Korea’s educational institutions of discourses directly and indirectly harmful to both Korean LGBTs and foreign LGBTs who live and work in this country. I would say to the secretary-general, “Mr. Ban, sir, bring the message home!” 

By Gabriel Sylvian

Gabriel Sylvian is a graduate student at Seoul National University. ― Ed.