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Traces the development of new anti-LGBTQ movements in Taiwan and their interactions with the US Religious Right
In 2019, global media celebrated Taiwan as the first Asian country to legalize same-sex marriage. However, the pursuit of this human rights milestone spurred waves of opposition to LGBTQ rights that have fundamentally shaped the nation’s democracy and its relationship with the United States. This book examines Taiwan’s anti-LGBTQ movements, analyzes their rise and fall, and reveals their surprising links with American religious conservatism.
Given that Christianity is a minority religion in Taiwan and East Asia, the book seeks to answer how and why Christian-led anti-LGBTQ sentiments became so powerful in Taiwan, and how they have built transnational connections with American and other international counterparts.
Drawing on more than 100 in-depth interviews with leading figures across a wide political spectrum, and two years of cumulative ethnographic observation in both Taiwan and the United States, Kao reveals that moral conservatism has been flowing across borders and adapting to contemporary socio-political institutions as it seeks to protect its moral territories and expand its ideological power. Exploring the transnational ebbs and flows of moral conservatism as a direct response to rising pro-LGBTQ liberalism and queer radicalism, Fear of Queer Taiwan offers a groundbreaking theoretical framework to understand conservatism’s fluidity in today’s ever-evolving global landscape of gender and sexual politics.
— Arlene Stein, Rutgers University
Just as the power of queer theory breeds from contesting the stability of categories, the growth of sexual conservatism—especially in its global formation—assumes a similar fluidity across various religious and political spectrums. No other book has unpacked this insight as sophisticatedly and persuasively as Fear of Queer Taiwan, itself setting a new benchmark for transnational queer studies against the challenging geopolitical climate of our times.
— Howard Chiang, author of Transtopia in the Sinophone Pacific
Provocative and insightful, Fear of Queer Taiwan answers important questions about the spread and retraction of anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment with a dynamic understanding of how politics really works on the ground and across the world. With thorough methods and insightful analysis, this book captures the slippery, liquid nature of anti-LGBTQ+ politics.
— Amy L. Stone, author of Gay Rights at the Ballot Box
If anti-LGBTQ activism can succeed in Taiwan, a progressive nation where Christianity is a minority religion, it can take hold anywhere. Kao’s theory of how ideas, resources, and power are mobilized to marginalize LGBTQ people in Taiwan brings fresh insights to the study of global conservative movements.
— Tina Fetner, author of Sex in Canada: The Who, Why, When, and How of Getting Down Up North