During the holiday season, there was much news in S. Korea’s queer society. The Korean government passed a revised curriculum with a removal of the term “sexual minority,” and the Ministry of Defense announced the plan to specify ‘same sex’ in article 92-6 of the Military Criminal Act. One good news is that the committee of the Seoul Queer Culture Festival has registered as an incorporated association.
English Translation: 지니
Translation review: Juyeon, 피웊
Writer of the original text: Miguel
Review and amendments to the original text: 레이
It has been less than 2 months since we published the last post of 2022 on Christmas, but many things have gone on in S. Korea. Among them, we would like to follow up on three topics we shared last year.
The government insists to revise the education curriculum that excludes the term ¨sexual minority¨
Last November, S. Korea’s Ministry of Education deleted the word ¨sexual minority¨ from the revision of the 12-year education curriculum, arguing that the term will “foment the third gender”. Many communities and individuals urged the government to amend the latest version, criticizing that their decision to take no action to address the hatred against sexual minorities within the education system.
However, the Korean government approved the revised curriculum plan. The National Education Commission passed the revision that the Ministry of Education had submitted on December 6th. During the approval process, it not only decided to leave the term deleted, but also additionally removed the term “sexuality” from health education. The commission was established under the president to review the latest education plans. It was criticized for getting affected by the political stance of the president and the ruling party, despite the important role in thoroughly examining the new curriculum plan. While reviewing the revised curriculum, it didn’t accept any opinion that pleaded the importance of education regarding sexual minorities.
The Ministry of Education finalized the revision that does not include sexual minorities and announced the guideline for school textbooks on January 27th. It will be an instruction for publishing companies to develop textbooks. However, it contains abstract and macro standards, which makes it premature to discuss specific problems. Yet it cannot avoid publishing the textbooks with deleted terms such as “sexual minority,” “gender equality,” and “sexuality”, so it is worrisome that those textbooks might erase the existence of queer students.
Defense ministry plans a retrogressive revision by specifying ‘same sex activity’
We have shared what Article 92-6 of South Korea’s Military Criminal Act, and Korean court’s recent cases of the victim of the article. The Supreme Court acquitted the victims prosecuted for the violation of article 92-6, but the defense ministry plans to put the term ‘same sex’ in Article 92-6.
Article 92-6 stipulates that “A person who commits anal intercourse with military persons or any other indecent act shall be punished by imprisonment with labor for up to two years,” and the Ministry of Defense tries to amend it with the term ‘same-sex’. The original article does not specify any sex, but the amendment aims to narrow down the scope of sexual harassment that was not gender specific. The relevant Defense officials stated that it is only to punish activities that damage military discipline, not to go against the stream.
However, as the Supreme Court has passed sentence, the “act of anal intercourse” that is stated in Article 92-6 does not imply any certain sex, and it is difficult to say that certain sex’s activities would encroach upon military discipline. Moreover, we have to highlight the preceding case where the military has already tried to punish a male soldier that had consensual same sex intercourse outside of his barracks. The military officials keeps insisting that the article is just to mend discipline inside barrack despite it was used to anachronically suppress queer soldiers. The Supreme court already had expressed that the amendment can be problematic. The Ministry of Defense tries to embody the article even so, which makes the ministry’s excuse unconvincing and makes its intention questionable.
Seoul Queer Culture Festival(SQCF) Organizing Committee registered as an incorporate association
The government authorities’ systemic discrimination against sexual minorities have been our frequent topic. We briefly covered that the Seoul government’s decision to decline SQCF organizing committee’s registration as an incorporate association. We finally got an update from the committee that it was approved to enroll itself as a non-profit organization.
It took lots of struggles and challenges throughout the process. The organization committee applied to register as a corporation in 2019 for a better administration of the festival. But the municipal government pended the 2-week-process for 2 years, and disapproved it in 2021. To make an excuse of the decision, it quoted some fake news from hate group, and found fault with conducting a sales of sexual organ shaped products. Taking too much administrative capability to prevent disputes with hate group was another excuse of the government. This shows that the relevant authorities go against their responsibility to lead in dealing with all issues.
From the document that Seoul government submitted to the Central Administrative Appeals Commission Corporation in April 2022, the government stated that “Guaranteeing social minorities’ human rights is against the constitution law,” according to an exclusive coverage of The Seoul Sinmun. Even though the approval of the SQCF’s organization committee’s registration is a good news, the committee also informed that there still is a discrimination of the government on an administrative level. The government officials demanded prohibition of ‘too much exposure,’ and ‘not to exhibit, distribute, and sale products that imitate shapes of the genitals’ as the condition for the committee’s registration. The condition is not really different from what the Seoul government had suggested for years to interrupt SQCF’s administration.
Still, there are many issues in the field of politics, broadcast, education, etc. that we could not cover on this article. We plan on covering more topics in the following newsletter. We hope this platform can be useful for you to access S. Korea’s LGBTQ+ news.
P.S. We express our deepest condolences to Pastor Lim Bora’s passing on February 3rd. Pastor Lim led to promote social minorities’ human rights, and especially was supportive to queer christians.
English Translation: 지니
Translation review: Juyeon, 피웊
Writer of the original text: Miguel
Review and amendments to the original text: 레이
References (available in Korean)
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