WorldPride, one of the most important queer events worldwide, will not take place in Taiwan in 2025 as planned. On August 12, the Taiwanese organizers surprisingly announced that the event had to be canceled due to differences with InterPride, the international association of Pride associations.
“There were major discrepancies between our viewpoints on the name of the event, understandings of Taiwanese culture and expectations of what a WorldPride event should look like,” said the Taiwan Pride and Kaohsiung Pride organizing team. It accuses InterPride of giving in to China, which regards the effectively independent Taiwan as part of its national territory. Contrary to previous agreements, InterPride insisted on not naming the event “WorldPride Taiwan” but “WorldPride Kaohsiung”, after the host city in the south of the country.
In fact, InterPride spoke of “WorldPride Taiwan 2025” in the November 2021 announcement. According to the organizers, the name was part of the application from the beginning and was recorded as such at a meeting between Kaohsiung Pride, Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and InterPride.
However, there had already been discrepancies in autumn 2021. At the time, InterPride said the event was taking place in the “Taiwan region”. In response to the protests of numerous Taiwanese, InterPride announced that they stood “for human rights” and “self-determination” – and spoke again of “WorldPride Taiwan”.
Whether pressure from China was the reason for the recent reversal is not known. The organization announced that InterPride was “surprised” and “disappointed” by the cancellation. They were confident that a compromise on the name could have been reached, citing the tradition of previous city-named WorldPrides.
The Taiwanese team explains that the event should not only have taken place in Kaohsiung, but in all of Taiwan. Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs accuses InterPride of breaching its word for “political considerations”: “The decision not only disregards Taiwan’s rights and conscientious efforts, it also damages Asia’s large LGBTIQ community and runs counter to the progressive principles that InterPride advocates.”
Taiwan became the first country in Asia to legalize marriage for all in 2019. Taiwan’s non-binary digital minister, Audrey Tang, is known internationally and beyond the queer community.
At international events such as the Olympic Games, Taiwan usually has to compete as “Chinese Taipei” because of China’s claim to sovereignty. Taiwan was never part of the People’s Republic of China, but is claimed by the latter as its own national territory.
