Global LGBTQ event cancelled after political crisis in Taiwan

An international LGBTQ gathering in Taiwan has been cancelled after global organisers demanded the self-ruling island’s name be removed from the 2025 event.

Taiwan on Friday(12th) blamed “political considerations” for the cancellation of the WorldPride 2025 Taiwan after it said the organisers had insisted that the name “Taiwan” be removed from the title.

To avoid political complications with China which views the democratically-governed island as its own territory and bristles at anything that suggests it is an independent country, Taiwan participates in Global events as “Chinese Taipei”.

Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry says the WorldPride event would have advanced regional diversity and equality in East Asia. (Reported by Aljzeera)

In Asia’s first such ruling, Taiwan‘s top court legalised gay marriage in 2019 and said its decision must be implemented within two years.

“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 Foreign Ministry said.

InterPride said later in a statement that they were “surprised to learn” the news and while they were disappointed, respected the decision of Taiwan.

“We were confident a compromise could have been reached with respect to the long-standing WorldPride tradition of using the host city name. We suggested using the name ‘WorldPride Kaohsiung, Taiwan’,” it added.