How come Taiwan is LGBT friendly, yet Japan and South Korea are not?
Last Updated: 24.06.2025 01:11
In fact, I noticed in Japan that the foreigners who seem to be accepted the most are in fact gay people, I noticed gay white men in Japan with all these female friends and obviously a boyfriend there etc.
But when talking about the actual population itself, they are very friendly to gays.
I will however have to point out one thing, I feel sort of compelled to admit this, it may appear like the foreign gay person is actually treated better than the domestic gay Japanese person. Meaning it doesn’t appear that random Japanese people who are gay, are necessarily super popular people etc. So maybe the situation of being gay in Japan is a bit different if you are a Japanese born there, rather than a gay foreigner visiting Japan who is seen by Japanese as a “fun” person to be friends with.
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For example gays are allowed in Japan’s military, but not in South Korea’s military.
The government however are conservative, and have tried to resist allowing same sex marriage, but that’s really the only roadblock you will find in Japan.
Japan = 70.
Basically according to the above site, the difference in legal rights for gays breaks down like this, scored out of 100.
It’s possible that Japanese people see gay white men as somehow less threatening/scary as straight white men, which might explain why the Japanese seem to accept gay white men as their friends a lot more quickly than a straight white man etc. I also noticed gay black men there who had a lot of friends etc.
Gays are allowed to adopt kids in Japan, but not in South Korea.
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The point I am making basically, is that Japan’s society isn’t anti-gay.
And there are a few other differences, you can notice this here if you compare the two.
Japan’s society actually is gay friendly, very much so.
You can still legally be together as partners there (but it’s technically not classed as the identical thing as marriage), this is something they did in the law a year ago or so, like a half way type of thing.
Taiwan = 85.
As far as South Korea, South Korea is slightly anti-gay, this can’t be denied. It’s not anti-gay to the degree of something like Saudi Arabia however, but in a minor form South Korea is anti-gay.
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South Korea = 48.
Now, Taiwan without a doubt however is one of the most free countries in the world, so Taiwan has gay marriage, it also has one of the most transparent election systems in the world where they physically show each vote as it’s counted etc (they air this on TV) and it takes forever, lol.