K-Pop Stars Who Are Gay, Queer, Part of LGBTQ+ Community

K-Pop Stars Who Are Gay, Queer, Part of LGBTQ+ Community

K-Pop Stars Who Are Gay, Queer, Part of LGBTQ+ Community

Okay-pop idols are continuously within the highlight — from strict contracts to fan expectations, each half of their lives is watched carefully. However for stars within the LGBTQ+ neighborhood, the stress is much more intense.

In South Korea, being overtly queer remains to be an enormous deal. Whereas some progress has been made, popping out within the Okay-pop world can put careers in danger. “Whereas the Republic of Korea (South Korea) broadly respects the rights of its residents, there are important human rights considerations,” Human Rights Watch said in a 2023 report, “particularly concerning lesbian, homosexual, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) folks.”

Regardless of this, a small quantity of Okay-pop stars have taken the courageous step of popping out — publicly sharing their reality in an trade that isn’t at all times able to help them.

One of probably the most acknowledged names is Holland, who made historical past as the primary overtly homosexual Okay-pop idol. His journey into music wasn’t clean. When he first began out, no leisure companies have been prepared to simply accept an overtly homosexual artist. So Holland took issues into his personal arms.

He labored two part-time jobs to fund his debut single, “Neverland,” which dropped in January 2018. In 2019, he launched his first mini-album by crowdfunding. His profession has been self-made from the very starting.

“There are not any examples [of gay idols] in Korea,” Holland advised HighsNobiety in 2022. “I’m able to should pave the best way myself, so it’s a bit difficult. I couldn’t have come this far with simply the title of being the primary homosexual Okay-pop idol. I got here this far as a result of of the help of the style trade.”

He defined that vogue was one of the few locations the place he felt seen. “Trend is one of probably the most supportive industries for the LGBTQ neighborhood.”

Rising up, Holland didn’t have any Korean queer idols to look as much as. “After I was youthful, there wasn’t a Korean idol singer who had overtly come out or revealed their LGBTQ+ standing,” he advised British Vogue in 2020. “So throughout my education years, after I was going by a troublesome time, I used to be influenced loads by Western LGBTQ+ pop artists. I knew we would have liked an analogous determine in Korea.”

Now, Holland is changing into that determine — and paving the best way for others to observe. Scroll by our gallery to uncover all of the Okay-pop stars who’ve come out as half of the LGBTQ+ neighborhood.

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