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<\/a>Earlier this year, Taiwan became the first place in Asia to legalise same-sex marriage. This made 2019 a milestone year for gay rights in Asia \u2013 but it was also the culmination of decades of education and debate about LGBT rights in Taiwan, whose universities have led the continent on gender studies research at university level.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the sense of promoting gay awareness, academic queer studies did work to promote a more tolerant attitude towards LGBT,\u201d Josephine Ho, an emeritus professor at\u00a0National Central University<\/a>, told\u00a0Times Higher Education<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 although she also noted that some queer scholars opposed the institution of marriage entirely, whether gay or straight.<\/p>\n When Professor Ho founded the Center for the Study of Sexualities at NCU in the mid-1990s, it set off a proliferation of queer studies activity. For her work, the prominent feminist scholar has been nicknamed the \u201cgodmother of the Taiwanese queer movement\u201d.<\/p>\n The NCU centre was the first of its kind in Asia as a research collective. It hosted overseas experts and events with names such as the \u201c4Sex Conference\u201d and \u201cSuper Slim conference\u201d. It even published a handbook for schoolteachers called\u00a0The Gender\/Sexuality Campus: Radical Education for the New Generation<\/em>.<\/p>\n Today, NCU is part of a gender and sexuality studies research cluster that includes\u00a0National Tsing Hua University<\/a>, National Yang Ming University and\u00a0National Chiao Tung University<\/a>.<\/p>\n While Professor Ho acknowledged Taiwan\u2019s activism, she gave credit to other Asian areas that have been at the forefront of queer studies. For example, the Institute of Sex Studies at\u00a0Renmin University of China<\/a>\u00a0in Beijing, which confers master\u2019s and PhDs, was established in 1991. Japan and South Korea also have histories of queer studies and research.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, queer studies are so nascent that perhaps no Asian state can\u00a0claim\u00a0to be\u00a0a leader quite yet. \u201cQueer-related studies as an institution are scattered and few,\u201d Professor Ho said. \u201cWhether any nation in Asia could claim to have queer studies\u00a0as a legitimate field of study is still in question.\u201d She described queer studies as residing in the \u201cghetto of the university\u201d, with most courses offered under other disciplines,\u00a0such as gender studies, English or sociology.<\/p>\n While Asian queer studies are inspired in part by work in the US, they have also taken on a life of their own. Since the beginning, Taiwan scholars have used different terms. Instead of \u201cqueer\u201d, they called their studies \u201ckuer\u201d\u00a0<\/em>(which roughly translates as \u201ccool kids\u201d), \u201clanbi\u201d\u00a0<\/em>or \u201cyao\u201d<\/em>. \u201cAs\u00a0kuer<\/em>\u00a0studies in Taiwan develop, they will acquire their own formation and line of thought,\u201d Professor Ho said.<\/p>\n John Wei, a senior lecturer at the Media Design School in New Zealand, told\u00a0THE<\/em>\u00a0that \u201cqueer\/gender studies are still underdeveloped in Sinophone Asia, if we look at Western academics and the quality and quantity of their research outputs\u201d, although he added that Western development \u201cshouldn\u2019t be our single benchmark\u201d.<\/p>\n Dr Wei has experienced the ambivalence towards queer studies in the region. After his PhD, he was referred to a faculty position at a Malaysian university but was turned down\u00a0because his research topic was \u201ctoo sensitive\u201d.<\/p>\n He is now working in New Zealand and finishing\u00a0Queer Chinese Cultures and Mobilities<\/em>, which will be published in 2020 by the University of Hong Kong Press, one of the more progressive academic publishers in the region.<\/p>\n HKU Press began publishing work in this field in 2008 with its Queer Asia series, which has an editorial board comprised of international scholars. While most of the books are in English, there are also editions in Chinese.<\/p>\n Dr Wei\u2019s book examines queer issues across Sinophone Asia, which includes mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and the ethnic Chinese community in Malaysia. He hopes that queer studies scholars in South Korea, Japan and India will also find relevance in his work.<\/p>\n A state\u2019s laws do not necessarily reflect how open academics are on LGBT issues. Malaysian laws penalise homosexuality, but there are prominent \u201cout\u201d Malaysian-Chinese artists and film-makers. Homosexuality is illegal in Singapore, but the\u00a0National University of Singapore<\/a>\u00a0has been hosting forums and conferences with queer studies scholars for more than a decade.<\/p>\n Professor Ho stressed that Asian scholars should forge their own path. \u201cQueer studies in the West and\u00a0kuer<\/em>\u00a0or\u00a0lanbi<\/em>\u00a0studies in Taiwan can be said to share family resemblances, but are quite different from one another.\u201d<\/p>\n joyce.lau@timeshighereducation.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n