Gay Vietnam: Is the untry beg the new LGBT Paradise?

Contents:

• VIETNAM CLAR BEG LGBTQ+ IS ‘NOT AN ILLNS’ VICTORY FOR GAY RIGHTS
• GAY VIETNAM: IS THE UNTRY TURNG TO AN ‘LGBTQ+ PARADISE’?
• GAY VIETNAM
• SAIGON GAY TRAVEL

VIETNAM CLAR BEG LGBTQ+ IS ‘NOT AN ILLNS’ VICTORY FOR GAY RIGHTS

While Vietnam embrac homosexual tourists and homosexualy general, ’s still a socially nservative natn, and many of s people are still hidg their sexualy om their thanks to var LGBTQIA+ groups that are often fund by Wtern anizatns as well as young Vietname g back to the untry after studyg abroad, more and more iativ have been tablished to create clive and safe spac for anyone to exprs their genr and celebratn of the global Pri Month, we listed a few Facebook pag that promote diversy where queer people n eely exprs themselv and feel safe while PriWh over 34, 000 lik and followers, Viet Pri is a page managed by the ICS Center, an anizatn that protects and promot gay rights the untry. Viet Pri is a pri event anized by the Vietname gay, bisexual and transgenr muny and supportg fay, relativ, and iends. A much-need piece of news for LGBT+ people livg Saigon, Vietpri – Vietnam’s gay pri para, will celebrate s first eback after a 2-year hiat.

GAY VIETNAM: IS THE UNTRY TURNG TO AN ‘LGBTQ+ PARADISE’?

While the untry is welg towards LGBTQ+ tourists, Vietname society remas tradnal and nservative towards homosexualy. The Internatnal Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Associatn (ILGA) publish an annual survey of sexual orientatn laws.

Hundreds of monstrators marched through the streets of the Vietname pal to ll for an end to discrimatn agast the untry's lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr (LGBT) muny. Beg gay, bisexual or transgenr should not be nsired an illns and nnot be treated, the Vietnam ernment has announced “a huge paradigm shift” LGBTQ+ rights the Mistry of Health said medil profsnals should treat LGBTQ+ people wh rpect and ensure they are not discrimated an announcement sent to provcial and municipal health partments earlier this month, and posted on the ernment webse, the mistry said beg LGBTQ+ “is entirely not an illns” so “nnot be ‘cured’ nor need[s] to be ‘cured’ and nnot be nverted any way” said that medics should not “terfere nor force treatment” on LGBTQ+ patients. In November, the Leave wh Pri mpaign om the Instute for Studi of Society, Enomy, and Environment (iSEE) petned the World Health Organizatn Vietnam to affirm that beg gay is not a disease.

In one of the few books that overview the tersectn of both topics, Art and Homosexualy, Reed (2011) exam a broad span of artworks and artists om around the world, sometim gog back lennia, to discs the changg nature of ias about homosexualy and s acceptance the var societi he rearch. This rearch gap was addrsed by curator Lenzi her paper “How Queer Translat Southeast Asian Contemporary Art” (2015), a nuanced applitn of queer analysis to a number of artworks that often do not explicly reference homosexualy—if they refer to at all.

GAY VIETNAM

Taylor (2009) is ut about histori that rce performance to an offshoot of ntemporary art, or that approximate performance and ’s background law glimmers through her reful analysis, ncurrg wh Aronson (1999) that homosexualy has been ls well tolerated Vietnam than elsewhere Southeast Asia. Aronson (1999: 204) studi legal s om ancient to ntemporary, observg that the absence of laws agast homosexualy Vietnam reified s visibily the public realm and served “to ny the possibily of s existence”. He sweeps through other historil sourc to track down acunts om travellers and missnari of the past, datg om the 1600s, that generally suggt that throughout the ag, unlike s neighbours, the land now known as Vietnam nmned homosexualy.

Until the year 2000 was illegal for gay upl to live together, and homosexualy is still owned upon, part bee was only removed om the official mental illns list 2001 (Mann, 2014).

SAIGON GAY TRAVEL

Newton (2012), her ethnography of female homosexualy Vietnam, exam s growg muny lexin and three-part lbian genr system. For Newton (2012) and Rydstrøm (2006) sexual activy has been nsired a “social evil” (tá» nạn xã há»i) even Vietnam’s recent history, placg a stigma most heavily on women (Schuler et al., 2006) summary, the lerature suggts that legal and social nstcts had historilly obscured homosexualy Vietnam, to a gree that ed to be thought of as non-existent or a foreign behavur that did not occur among Vietname people. Photographer Maika Elan (WPP, 2013) and wrer Bui Anh Tam (Tran Dh Thanh Lam, 2004) provi eloquent acunts of how negative media portrayals of gay people prompted them to vtigate the topic and velop creative works to bat ill-rmed stereotyp.

Begng wh the premise that homosexualy “exists” Vietnam, seeg that now has a mentn the untry’s legal history, this article plac the nflictg subjectivi surroundg cultural norms, the legal amework, artistic novatn and media bias relatn to art productn. Focg on reprentatns of inty “around the practic and pleasur that the 20th century beme known as ‘homosexual’ ” (Ofield, 2005), this discsn tak a ntaed approach that knowgly leav out some well-known gay artists yet clus the work of straight-intified on. To unravel a schematic chronology of natn-specific queer art, the exampl fd mon ground, as Reed’s book, their pacy to place homosexualy the as ristanceThe existence of civil society Vietnam is qutnable (Lenzi, 2015), but activism n manift many forms, and art has opened doors for challengg social norms.

Tran (2012: 376–379) reunts that French thor Andre Gi’s homosexualy “was an open secret Vietnam at the time”, the 1930s, and explas some oblique ways which that fact appears lerature by Vietname wrers and “led to the articulatn of dividual sire that stabilized the tablished social orr”. Wh such diverse methods of nttg tablished nons and tradns, one n unrstand that this animated creative i ma way for novel artworks, and might be a nducive environment for homosexuals to feel ls prsured to rema the art 1990s Vietnam: Tong Tan opens the closetFrom this perd, one of the first artists able to leave Vietnam to exhib abroad was Tong Tan (b. “My goal was cid”, he says, explag that he was ready to make evint his homosexualy by showg this work and to serly velop his reer as a profsnal artist.