Joe.My.God. LGBT News
The Taipei Times reports:
The organizers of WorldPride 2025 have canceled the Kaohsiung event because its licensing group, InterPride, demanded that it remove “Taiwan” from the event’s name, they said in a statement yesterday. Kaohsiung was to host WorldPride Taiwan 2025 after being granted the right by the global LGBTQ advocacy group.
However, the WorldPride 2025 Taiwan Preparation Committee said that InterPride recently gave “abrupt notice” asking it to change the name of the event and use “Kaohsiung” instead of “Taiwan,” even though it applied for the event using “Taiwan” in its name.
“Taiwan deeply regrets that InterPride, due to political considerations, has unilaterally rejected the mutually agreed upon consensus, and broken a relationship of cooperation and trust, leading to this outcome,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
Reuters reports:
Kaohsiung organizers said InterPride had recently “suddenly” asked them to change the name of the event to “Kaohsiung,” removing the word “Taiwan.”
“After careful evaluation, it is believed that if the event continues, it may harm the interests of Taiwan and the Taiwan gay community. Therefore, it is decided to terminate the project before signing the contract,” said the Kaohsiung organizers.
InterPride said in a statement they were “surprised to learn” the news and while they were disappointed, respected the decision. Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry said the event would have been the first WorldPride event to be held in East Asia.
WorldPride takes place every two years alongside a major local event. In 2019, WorldPride was hosted by New York City in conjunction with the 50th Stonewall anniversary. Australia will host WorldPride 2023.
Taiwan blamed “political considerations” for the cancellation of WorldPride 2025 Taiwan after it said the organizers had insisted the word “Taiwan” be removed.https://t.co/dvozY2NU7u
— CNN International (@cnni) August 14, 2022
Local organizers say global LGBTQ+ rights group InterPride asked them to replace ‘Taiwan’ with ‘Kaohsiung’ in its WorldPride 2025 Taiwan event. https://t.co/v0h6pFeasA
— Rappler (@rapplerdotcom) August 13, 2022