Homophobia threatens South Korea’s virus efforts

SEOUL—As South Korea grapples with a new spike in coronavirus infections thought to be linked to nightspots in Seoul, including several popular with gay men, it’s also seeing rising homophobia that’s making it difficult for sexual minorities to come forward for diagnostic tests.

The first confirmed patient in the new coronavirus cluster was a 29-year-old man who visited five nightclubs and bars in Seoul’s Itaewon entertainment neighbourhood in a single night before testing positive for the virus last Wednesday. Further investigation has since found more than 100 infections that appear linked to the nightspots.

A Christian church-founded newspaper, Kookmin Ilbo, reported last week that the places the man visited in Itaewon on May 2 included a gay club. The report was followed by a flood of anti-gay slurs on social media that included blaming the man and those at the club for endangering the country’s fight against the pandemic.

Views on sexual minorities in South Korea have gradually improved in recent years, but antigay sentiments still run deep in the conservative country. Same-sex marriages aren’t legal and there are no prominent openly gay politicians or business executives, though some have risen to stardom in the entertainment world.

Activist groups have criticized the Kookmin Ilbo report, saying that it was irrelevant that some of the nightspots the man went to were popular with gay people and the newspaper should not have disclosed it.