International LGBTIQ+ Organization Forced The Cancellation of A Global Pride Event in Taiwan
WorldPride Taiwan 2025 was cancelled because the organizers refused to drop "Taiwan" from the name of the event.
The international LGBTIQ+ organization InterPride is supposedly on a mission to advance the global pride movement — unless that pride consists of feeling proud about being Taiwanese.
The city of Kaohsiung, Taiwan was set to host an upcoming WorldPride event under the banner WorldPride Taiwan 2025. But that naming apparently didn’t sit well with InterPride, which demanded the name be changed to WorldPride Kaohsiung 2025.
The Taiwanese organizers and InterPride couldn’t come to an agreement and the event was ultimately canceled. InterPride later backpedalled and posted on social media that it offered to keep Taiwan in the name, but organizers say that’s false.
In response, IntePride said in a social media post that it had suggested using the name "WorldPride Kaohsiung, Taiwan" in line with the "long-standing WorldPride tradition of using the host city name."
But A-Ku (阿古), co-chairman of the local WorldPride Taiwan 2025 organizing committee, told CNA in an interview Saturday that InterPride had never given this naming option.
Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) helped organize a tripartite meeting with InterPride and Kaohsiung Pride on Nov. 16, 2021 during which the three parties agreed upon the name Taiwan, A-Ku said.
Despite this, InterPride subsequently announced in a letter dated July 26 that, based on a vote by the directors and supervisors, the event must be named either "WorldPride Kaohsiung" or "Kaohsiung WorldPride," A-Ku said.
He added that InterPride's assertion that it had suggested using the name "WorldPride Kaohsiung, Taiwan" was "completely inconsistent with the facts."
A-Ku said that the name "WorldPride Taiwan 2025" had been used throughout the entire bidding process from the beginning of 2021, including on application forms, plans, and other relevant documents.
As David Yu, a Berlin-based Taiwanese American technologist and amateur athlete, points out at Foreign Policy, there may be more politics at play here:
InterPride leadership may have their own priorities. InterPride aims to eventually receive consultative status at the United Nations. China has repeatedly blocked Taiwan’s inclusion in international organizations such as the U.N. and the World Health Organization. Make no mistake, any objection to Taiwan, whether directly from China or based on existing U.N. rules, is ultimately a result of China’s making. If InterPride simply allowing the Taiwanese organizers to name an event reflective of their chosen identity is justification for the group’s exclusion, it can’t possibly expect inclusion would suddenly turn the group into effective advocates while acquiescing to the framework set by an authoritarian government.
We suggest reading the rest of Yu’s piece at Foreign Policy, which discusses how the broader LGBTQ+ movement has been succumbing to China’s authoritarian pressure for quite some time now.