Island Queerness: Exploring LGBT+ Taiwan

Taiwan is a small island nation off the coast of China, with a turbulent history and a current reputation for being a quickly developing country with one of Asia\u27s most progressive societies. Taipei\u27s LGBT pride parade is the second biggest one in all of Asia, and the Taiwanese queer community is known as one of Asia\u27s most open ones. Ryan Bishop (Zlatanova) \u2717 and Spencer Zhang \u2719 spent two weeks exploring the Taiwanese LGBT+ community in May 2017. They conducted over 15 interviews with queer Taiwanese students, activists and politicians, including Taiwan\u27s first gay rights activist, Chi Chia-Wei, and one of the biggest political advocates for the queer community, Legislator Yu Mei-Nu. Within two weeks, the two visited various LGBT+ significant sites, businesses and events, and witnessed the historic ruling by a Taiwanese court which paved the way for the legalization of same-sex marriage. From community problems, through education and societal attitudes, to trans issues and community problems, Ryan and Spencer learned profound insights into the Taiwanese queer community. All that they found is compiled in the docu-series Island Queerness: Exploring LGBT+ Taiwan and a future written publication