Talk:LGBT rights in North Korea

A Snowstorm in Pyongyang
Does this short story actually exist? Does it have an author? Who translated it? Was it printed and sold in North Korean bookstores? Is it on a website? All these articles about gay rights mention this mysterious text, but I cannot find any info on the text itself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.88.98.234 (talk) 14:59, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Rewriting suggestions
The article reads, 'The status of gay rights in North Korea is unclear due to the country's tendency towards secrecy regarding its internal affairs.' Tendency towards is probably an understatement, so perhaps those two words should be removed from the article. The article also reads, 'It is unclear as to whether this code of conduct is implemented to punish homosexuals.' The 'as to' part of this could be removed. Skoojal (talk) 08:07, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

"against the socialist lifestyle"
As a gay socialist, the suggestion that this wording could possibly be misconstrued as anti-gay is offensive to me, especially after the official clarification in the first paragraph. I can't believe I'm defending a policy of an oppressive pariah state like North Korea, but the first paragraph makes clear that the government's problem isn't homosexuality as a biological phenomenon, but the mainstream depiction of homosexuality in the West (which is really just another shade of Western consumerism and materialism). You don't have to be Kim Jong-Il to have a problem with capitalism, but on the contrary, suggesting that homosexuality and socialism are inherently in conflict with one another as this article suggests buys into stereotypes and is not very objective. --74.103.150.125 (talk) 04:39, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I know this is probably a bit late, but I agree, that sentence seemed dubious and backed up by a possibly POV source. Since there has been no discussion on this, I've removed the statement. – Jordan Hooper (talk) 13:31, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Edit – I have removed sentence from lead of article, but it is mentioned further down as a newspaper has claimed that lesbians have been executed under said law. – Jordan Hooper, aka Zumoarirodoka (talk) 20:36, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
 * What the Korean Times says is that '"The North government publicly executed two lesbians for being tinged with capitalism not for demoralization," Free North Korea Radio reported on Wednesday.' That radio station is basically a propaganda outlet against the North Korean government. It's not clear what the accompanying picture represents. It seems unrelated and possibly fake. The source does not say under what law the lesbians were executed, nor does it make any comment about this being rare or common. I can't find reference to "against the socialist lifestyle" in the Criminal Code, but decadent acts receive less than 5 years, so it is hard to believe you could receive a death sentence for a lifestyle issue.--Jack Upland (talk) 11:08, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Rewrite
This article seems to be totally written on assumption. Often claiming not to know the situation but it's probably something like this. That's making vast assumptions and portraying a potentially inaccurate image. If no one knows then no one knows. An article should not be making assumptions. I am willing to do a rewrite but I think a consensus is needed to know what to include because removing all the assumptions this topic will be somewhat barren. 94.197.221.24 (talk) 12:23, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I think you're right. There are a lot of assumptions. It's as if the writers want to find ill treatment.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:46, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

North Korean Poster Referring to Prevention of HIV Transmission between Gay Men
Looking at North Korea's policy on AIDS I came across a video at 1:30 on youtube which shows a Korean poster listing several measures to take including preventing the transmission of HIV between gay men. It belongs to a range of posters which were filmed during a conference on World AIDS Day in 2011. Of course, it is hard to say how that poster might have been used domestically. But it somehow contrasts with homosexuality being a forbidden topic as obviously at least a medical discourse on homosexuality exists. --Martin Weiser (talk) 18:47, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Which poster refers to gay men?--Jack Upland (talk) 07:41, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

Original research
The article states that, "Also, this official statement from the Korean Friendship Association no longer appears on its webpage". This is in reference to the Korean Friendship Association statement about gay rights in North Korea. I believe that sentence should be removed, as it is likely original research. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 22:54, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Questionable sources under "Family Policy"
"GlobalGayz.com" - this might as well be complete conjecture, there are no sources provided for the claims it makes (one link is dead, and the other leads to further anecdote). The source is neither objective nor does it have any reliable sources itself. The section using "GlobalGayz.com" as a source is pointless speculation and might as well be removed. Alext180 (talk) 06:30, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on LGBT rights in North Korea. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120205154843/http://www.novexcn.com/dprk_constitution_98.html to http://www.novexcn.com/dprk_constitution_98.html
 * Added tag to http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/topic,45a5fb512,45a5fc112,48187e26c,0,RFA,,.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 11:15, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Summary Table
Is this really appropriate?--Jack Upland (talk) 09:19, 27 April 2018 (UTC)


 * The table might be, but its contents? The only two lines that have green checks are dubious, given that the article indicates that homosexual sexual activities are lumped into sexual immorality (meaning that there's merely no specific laws against it) and that makes the claim about equal ages of consent in desperate need of a citation due to the unlikelihood of there being laws establishing an age of consent for banned sexual practices. Werhdnt (talk) 05:20, 30 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Well, it seems established that there are no laws against homosexual activity as such. I think that line is valid. I don't see the basis for your claim that it is "banned". The second line might be misleading whether it is ticked or crossed. I can see no information about the age of consent in North Korea, so it's hard to say. The table also says, "Homosexuals in military are subject to severe punishment including death penalty". However, previously the article says, "Reportedly, male soldiers regularly break this rule, by engaging in casual heterosexual and homosexual affairs; these homosexual relationships have been described as situational sexual behavior rather than a sexual orientation." And the table says, "MSMs allowed to donate blood". There seems no evidence that this is an issue. North Korea's rate of HIV is low or non-existent, and there appear to be no openly gay men. Also, the table says that there are no anti-discrimination laws, but the article says the Constitution guarantees everyone equal rights. I think the table should be removed, as it serves no useful purpose.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:37, 30 November 2018 (UTC)


 * I will remove the table.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:39, 30 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Removed again as it was added back in without explanation.--Jack Upland (talk) 21:00, 4 July 2019 (UTC)


 * We use the table in every lgbt wiki page

Hope it is better like that If not no need to delete the whole table we will put unknown for the legal status as wed do with other tables AdamPrideTN (talk) 23:12, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I still don't see what useful purpose this table serves. A lot of the information is unverified and vague. I don't agree that we need this table here just because it's used elsewhere. Each article has to be assessed individually, and I don't think this table adds anything to the article. It's confusing and misleading. If we had more information, then, yes, the table might be useful. But currently I oppose using it.--Jack Upland (talk) 10:16, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I've removed it again. It appears to be the platform for the imaginative impulses of editors (as well as conformism). There appears to be little or no evidence for the information included.--Jack Upland (talk) 10:45, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

I'd love to see good info, but N.Korea is a bizarre state, and getting anything reliable is difficult. Plus I don't know if laws mean anything there. We also need to think about how to color N.Korea on the maps -- grey seems insufficient. — kwami (talk) 05:08, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Unreliable Sources
The South Korean newspaper I removed as a source regularly publishes articles about cryptids and has hosted editorials from holocaust deniers - it is not a reliable source. As for RFA - it was literally started by the CIA and is explicitly a US state propaganda tool. Please do not restore content sourced only to unreliable sources. 24.224.212.90 (talk) 12:51, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Celibate rifles
From the Summary Table:
 * LGBT people allowed to serve in the military Yes (If sexuality is kept private and, as with non-LGBT military members, after 10 years of celibacy)

What — everyone who wants to serve in the military has to be celibate for 10 years? What is the source for this claim?--Jack Upland (talk) 09:39, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

This Article is a Hot Mess
The article has serious questions regarding WP:Verifiability and WP:Reliable Sources to the point where it practically qualifies for deletion. Almost every major idea within the article either has an insufficient citation or is lacking one entirely. To compare to LGBT rights in Somalia, this page lacks any verification for claims about action, de jure or de facto, about treatment of LGBT rights within North Korea. The Somalia page is able to refer to an LGBT rights group regarding Somali law, this article has nothing of the sort. The claim in the first paragraph regarding illegality "through decency and obscenity laws" is unverified, and the source following it, although from the Australian government, is extremely shallow in terms of its own verification of its claim. The quote in the article is the only sentence the entire cited page has on the subject.

In the Criminal Laws section, the Korea Times citation about the lesbian execution is sourced from a Free North Korea Radio article, a publication funded by the US National Endowment for Democracy (which brings into question reliability considering it's a propaganda outlet). Similarly, the two references to particular articles in the constitution are not cited, and the constitution referred to in the citations is not up to date. I would recommend updating it with this. However, even with a correct citation, it doesn't address the fact that these articles do not refer directly to statutory treatment of LGBT individuals, nor does the article actually cite reliable instances of such prosecution/harmful treatment in North Korea.

Regarding the Media control and Censorship section, the single sentence citing Voice of America has two major issues. First Voice of America is a propaganda outlet. The celibacy for military service claim is both absurd and unsubstantiated, with an entire book being cited without specification as to the passage. The same is true for the second sentence, which also isn't about LGBT rights anyway. The Culture section also diverges from discussion of LGBT rights into LGBT culture in North Korea, which seems to be a focus different enough to warrant a separate article, considering LGBT in the United States has its own article.

In my opinion, the only salvageable section is Politics and propaganda, which still warrants heavy revision. As has already been discussed, the Snowstorm in Pyongyang story is practically untraceable and the citation only links to another wiki article. I'm not a regular editor, but I don't think that's acceptable citation practice? In general, some of the writing is unnecessary and unverified, particularly considering the paucity of citations here and in the rest of the article.

I'm not confident enough to revise the page myself, but as someone who wants to see reliable and accurate representation of controversial subjects like rights in North Korea, I'm hoping someone is up to the task to either address these issues or nominate the page for deletion entirely. 165.124.85.103 (talk) 04:36, 14 January 2022 (UTC)


 * This article has been tagged "more citations needed" since October 2016. We have limited information about North Korea in general, and very little on this topic.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:28, 14 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Even if the bad article is justified by the six year old tag that hasn't been resolved (disagree), that doesn't justify the bad citation/evidential practice for the claims that do have cites. In its current state the article is functionally hearsay. It wouldn't be acceptible if this were a page on any other country; the research would either be more thoroughly criticized or the page wouldn't exist. 165.124.85.67 (talk) 20:17, 14 January 2022 (UTC)


 * I never said the tag justifies the article — how could it? It merely shows this problem has been acknowledged for some time.--Jack Upland (talk) 23:51, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Consensus vote
The sources for this page seem few and far between to the point that a lot of it is fluff, assumptions, and badly/non-sourced material. Should I just nominate this page for deletion? What do you think? This page might have to go the same way as LGBT in Antarctica imo. Lmharding (talk) 19:21, 18 October 2022 (UTC) Blocked sock. [striking by AukusRuckus (talk) 09:57, 30 October 2022 (UTC)]
 * There is some solid sourcing... NY Times, Guardian to name two. I do not support deleting articles because they are a mess.  I advocate fixing the mess, and without going too deeply into the issue, I suspect that if all the bad sources were deleted, enough good ones would remain. Le Marteau (talk) 01:15, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I think there is no chance of this being deleted. Editors are likely to say they want to have this article as there is an article on the topic for every country.--Jack Upland (talk) 06:44, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Why I tagged this article as self-contradictory
This article currently claims

1. Homosexuality is "unknown" in North Korea (sourced to defector testimony)

2. It is known, but treated with hostility (citing state media bringing it up which wouldn't make sense if people simply were unaware of it)

3. It is "not an issue" legally - even if indivuals may have homophobic attitudes and it is rarely dicussed, there is no legal discrimination (as NK News seems to claim)

Obviously only one of these three can be true. So which is it? StrexcorpEmployee (talk) 09:57, 2 October 2023 (UTC)


 * I believe my edits may have resolved the contradiction. My understanding of the situation is that homosexuality is conceptually unknown to the people, with same-sex intimacy not seen as it is in the West; it is reported that people marry the opposite sex, because to not be interested in the opposite sex is considered unusual, or an illness. SItuational homosexuality is reported, anecdotally, but it is unknown whether it results in death in spite of the law. The DPRK do not legislate for it, but seemingly blame it on Western propaganda on the international stage. I have seen insufficient evidence (for obvious reasons) to suggest it is explicitly mentioned anywhere in DPRK, though it may result in executions. If you believe the evidence points in the other way, let me know. I'm going to leave it to you to decide whether it's been adequately addressed, as I'm a new editor. Thanks! Nonovix (talk) 01:11, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Apologies, forgot to ping StrexcorpEmployee Nonovix (talk) 02:01, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
 * There can obviously be a range of attitudes and practices within any society. There's certainly different assessments about them in the sources and these are appropriately covered in the article. I do not agree that including different views makes the article "contradictory". It could do with more information and sourcing, but that's another story (and I can see that's more easily said than done, too, in this case). I removed the hatnote. 175.39.67.81 (talk) 15:07, 23 March 2024 (UTC)