http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2008/08/06/2003419534
Family kills if you don't toe the hard gender line
By Josephine Ho Quinton Kao 何春蕤高旭寬
Wednesday, Aug 06, 2008, Page 8
A decade ago, a key figure in Taiwan’s lesbian and gay movement said out of
distress: “In Taiwan, only orphans can be gay.”
Taiwan, the whole Chinese world in fact, has a tradition of keeping “
potentially embarrassing” family matters a secret. This tradition has seen
the parents of many gay people express extreme anger and hatred toward them,
with some parents choosing to totally isolate and ignore their own children.
On some occasions, parents even use emotional blackmail to force their
children to “return to normality.”
This rejection and exile from the natural affection of one’s immediate
family has left many gay people trapped in between what they want and what
their families want, and long-term dejection has made many of them
susceptible to depression and mental anguish.
Now the same sad statement can be said about another population: “In Taiwan,
only orphans can be transgendered.”
Many transgendered people suffer condemnation by their families and ridicule
and ostracism at school. In a world where the distinction between men and
women is kept crisp and clear, transgendered people do not fit in on either
side. This situation has turned many of them into orphans, loved by no one
and despised at all times. They have to learn to rely on themselves to grow
and survive in this world.
They become the focus of their parents’ hatred and the crux of the messy
situation. Parents detest their mere existence, and their fate is to drift
through life in exile, living on antidepressants and sleeping pills. The pain
and humiliation can accumulate to the intensity that led a friend of ours to
leap from his high-rise apartment to end the misery. He had always been
afraid of heights, and the towel that he put over his eyes before the jump
poignantly spoke of his unbearable situation on the fringes of his family.
Living with desperation that has no end in sight, it is little wonder that
quite a number of transgendered people choose the same path. The cause of
suicide is not, as is commonly believed, an inability to handle pressure, but
this world’s obstinate refusal to accept these transgendered individuals and
help ease their burdens. Nor is it because they are impulsive and emotional,
but because this world refuses to give them any understanding or hope, not to
mention support or love.
In Taiwan, “blood is thicker than water” and “parents are always right”
are common proverbs. However, the coldness and cruelty of familial “love”
becomes evident as family members stubbornly overwrite the last wish of
their transgendered child to be buried in his chosen gender identity. At the
final stage of our friend’s life, not an ounce of love or respect came from
his parents: He was buried in his birth gender as a girl.
How many of our transgendered youth have to die before parents and elders
wake up to the fact that the stubbornness of adults often results in damaged
souls amongst the young that never fully heal, and young lives that never
reach maturity? Are the reputation and authority of adults really so
important that the young have to suffer throughout their lives?
Transgendered individuals may not be able to find solace or support from
their blood relatives, but members of Taiwan’s transgendered community will
not fail them. Taiwan’s first counseling line for transgendered individuals
will start operating today. The phone number is 02-2394-9008 and the service
will run from 7pm to 10pm every Wednesday night. With unconditional love, we
will try to uplift the souls of transgendered people who suffer at the hands
of their families.
Josephine Ho is a professor and coordinator at the Center for the Study of
Sexualities at National Central University. Quinton Kao is spokesperson for
the Taiwan Transgender Butterfly Garden.
TRANSLATED BY DREW CAMERON
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「那艘船忘了自己是飛行船了嗎？那艘船忘了自己飛上天空的時候了嗎？窮盡地平線、
奔向水平的方向，在那裡就是這船離陸起飛的地方；即便所有港口的燈火，都熄滅、都
陷入沉默，也要航向蒼穹。」 FROM 宙船（日本唱片大賞作詩賞得獎作品）
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