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Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
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 Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 9:13 pm Post subject: Gay Korean Teens Face Harassment |
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I translated this massively long article about the lives of gay kids in middle and high schools in Korea. It's well worth giving it a full read but I'll post some highlights here.
http://koreabeat.com/?p=231
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Gay teens have a high rate of suicide. In America 30% of teen suicides are due to anguish endured over sexual identity. The rate of suicide attempts among gay teens is twice to three times as high as that of their straight peers. From 48 to 76% of American gay teens have considered suicide and 29 to 42% have actually attempted it. But Korean teen suicides are usually thought to be due to depression over grades in school. This is because people deny the existence of teen homosexuality. Even when two female students committed suicide while holding hands, it was handled as if it had been grade depression. Though people are aware of �grade depression,� awareness of �sexual identity depression� is not increasing. Recently in Korea, too, a dissertation has been published about the grave rate of suicide attempts among gay teens. Kang Byeong-cheol and Ha Gyeong-hui (Seoul University graduate students in sociology) interviewed 105 gay people from age 13 to 23, finding that �being gay is associated with a higher risk of suicide.� According the dissertation, Korean gay teens are exposed to serious danger of suicide. 70% of the participants had considered suicide, 18.1% answered that they frequently thought about it, and nearly half � 45.7% � had in fact attempted it.
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A 19-year old gay teen testifies, �half my younger classmates went crazy and killed themselves.� She says her friend was rumored around school to be gay, and a teacher called her parents and outed her (out of the duties, of course, of protection and guidance). �Outing� means a coming-out that you don�t want. Her parents made her quit school and put her in a mental hospital. Afflicted with anguish, she took her own life. A third-year high school student testifies that she suffered group beatings from her friends. Ten of her classmates beat her in front of the classroom while saying, �how can a lesbian go to school?� Her shoulder was dislocated and her ankle tendons became swollen. But she was the one who was punished. She was suspended from school for a month due to fears of a second beating and must be on her best behavior in class � because to complain about this unfair treatment means coming out.
That kind of anti-gay violence makes Korea an unsafe place. Gay teens in particular must spend a lot of time in groups at school so the danger of violence there increases. According to the research of Kang Byeong-cheol over half, 52.9%, of gay teens have experienced verbal assaults and 20% have experienced physical violence or having their things broken, while more than 10% have been seriously assaulted with fists or weapons. Outing is also a big problem. 32 participants, 32.4%, had been outed, and 14 of them said they had been unfairly treated by friends or teachers afterward.
The unfair treatment was �being sent to the teacher�s room and forced to write about what I did wrong.� In the film a teen testifies, �I was punished by not being allowed to go to class until I obeyed the Bible.� |
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Alyallen
Joined: 29 Mar 2004
Location: The 4th Greatest Place on Earth = Jeonju!!!
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| Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 10:25 pm Post subject: |
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Very interesting article....
If you ever get a chance to see the docu, please share where you found it. |
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Yu_Bum_suk
Joined: 25 Dec 2004
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| Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 11:18 pm Post subject: |
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| How would you ever be able to tell which Korean teenagers are gay and which aren't? Some of my students get into couples, sit together resting their hands on each other's thighs, stroke each other and even kiss sometimes. The ones who live in the dorms can even sleep in the same bed. I had one student who was the biggest, tallest in her grade who would regularly go around groping other girls. You'd think it would be a gay teenager's paradise over here. |
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shifdog
Joined: 20 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 11:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Are they the guys wearing pink shirts? |
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Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 11:31 pm Post subject: |
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| I'm sure they can notice who is doing it just as friends and who is doing it because they might be a couple. It's not like the lesbians are going to be thinking, "wow this is great! I can feel up my friends!" They know they can't just openly have a girlfriend. |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 12:04 am Post subject: |
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| I think this is a society of don't ask, don't tell where males and females can openly hold hands, but if they say they are gay they will be disowned. Older Koreans seem to believe, in many cases, that only foreigners can be gay or that foreign culture is corrupting them. It is too bad that many youths kill themselves, because society shuns them in a cruel way. |
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jessie-b
Joined: 17 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 12:32 am Post subject: |
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| You can't really tell who is gay or straight...so always assume they might be gay. My mom taught me to ask, "are you in a relationship?", rather than do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend? |
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Ryst Helmut
Joined: 26 Apr 2003
Location: In search of the elusive signature...
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| Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 7:43 am Post subject: |
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| jessie-b wrote: |
| You can't really tell who is gay or straight...so always assume they might be gay. My mom taught me to ask, "are you in a relationship?", rather than do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend? |
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH_NgtblE6Q
We hears ya...
!shoosh,
Ryst |
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wo buxihuan hanguoren
Joined: 18 Apr 2007
Location: Suyuskis
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| Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 9:08 am Post subject: |
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| Hater Depot wrote: |
| I'm sure they can notice who is doing it just as friends and who is doing it because they might be a couple. It's not like the lesbians are going to be thinking, "wow this is great! I can feel up my friends!" They know they can't just openly have a girlfriend. |
Uh, you have been to Lesbian Park in Shinchon with all the high school lesbians openly kissing just outside the girl's toilet on any given day, right? |
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Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 10:11 am Post subject: |
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| The rumored Shangri-la? Never made it. But that's not the same as in school or they would be doing it there. |
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wo buxihuan hanguoren
Joined: 18 Apr 2007
Location: Suyuskis
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| Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 10:16 am Post subject: |
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| Hater Depot wrote: |
| The rumored Shangri-la? Never made it. But that's not the same as in school or they would be doing it there. |
Right. So the Korean media is always correct, non?
I heard that brown-skinned people are excellent asagai craftsmen, and that pygmies like avocados with lemon. It must be true, right, because I read it in a newspaper.
Bless you, shinmun.
Blinmun. |
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caniff
Joined: 03 Feb 2004
Location: All over the map
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| Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 10:20 am Post subject: |
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Let's turn the tables on this:
Have you ever been harassed by a gay Korean teen? |
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mrsquirrel
Joined: 13 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 1:36 pm Post subject: |
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There is a gay kid one one of my third year classes. Gay as gay can be. Mirrors make-up, checking hair, if he was in Thailand he would be wearing a training bra to class and acting like a girl.
He is a fucking pest as well. Had to move him yesterday so stuck him with some of the more boisterous boys to try and shut them up, they normally don't speak to each other. They took the piss out of him for a minute or so. Then the little turd noticed that one of the boys in front of him for whatever reason had a pool of water under his desk. Shouted out to me "Teacher pee, look pee"
How the fark can you not burst out laughing when a student does that. The sod had the class in stitches and one of the more tough boys looking extremely embarrassed as he tried to tell his friends it was only water. |
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Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 9:57 pm Post subject: |
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I've just posted an interview with the director too. She talks about the making of the movie and how making it changed how she thought about its subject matter.
Lesbian Censorship interview |
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PeteJB
Joined: 06 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 11:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Have you ever been harassed by a gay Korean teen? |
YES! They don't stop asking for my ****ing phone number! |
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