Gay in South Korea: ‘She said I don’t need a son like you’
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In South Korea, being LGBTQ is often seen as a disability or a mental illness, or by powerful conservative churches as a sin. There are no anti-discrimination laws in the country and, as the BBC’s Laura Bicker reports from Seoul, campaigners believe the abuse is costing young lives. It was a company dinner that changed Kim Wook-suk’s life as he knew it. A co-worker got drunk, slammed the table to get everyone’s attention and outed 20-year-old Kim. “It felt like the sky was falling down,” Kim told me. “I was so scared and shocked. No-one expected it.” Kim (not his real name) was fired immediately, and the restaurant owner, a Christian protestant, ordered him to leave. “He said homosexuality is a sin and it was the cause of Aids. He told me that he didn’t want me to spread homosexuality to the other workers,” says Kim. But worse was to come. The restaurant owner’s son visited Kim’s mother to give her the news her son was gay. “At that moment, she told me to leave the house and said I don’t need a son like you. So I was kicked out.” ‘Alienated and isolated’ Like so many other LGBTQ […]
