The sixth ILGA-ASIA Conference（第六届国际同志大会）was held from the 27th to the 30th of October in Taipei, Taiwan. More than 300 LGBT activists from nearly 40 countries attended the meeting, including ones from the American Human Rights Campaign, the ASEAN SOGIE Caucus, the Ford Foundation and EU offices. The participants shared thought-provoking presentations and discussions. This year’s theme was “Independent Souls and Bodies”（灵魂‧身体自主）. The ILGA-Asia Board along with the local hosts, the Taiwan Tongzhi Hotline Association（台湾同志咨询热线协会), developed the theme from both a global and local perspective. A broad variety of forums, workshops and activities were offered, covering topics including political strategy, messaging and awareness raising, comparative legal analysis and other specific strategy formulations.
Taiwan is a pioneer in the fields of gender equality and the LGBT movement, and has gained a lot of experience in the past years. At the closing of the conference, Ka Fei, director of the Tongzhi Hotline Association, gave a brief review of LGBT movement’s development in Taiwan. He mentioned that the biggest challenge to the present movement in Taiwan comes from international anti-LGBT religious feeling. During the four day conference, the participants shared their working experience in areas related to LGBT with the aim to help realize equal rights in Asia.
