Korean gay men

 Most couples even dress in identical clothing, sporting matching outfits, phones, and jewelry. Ha Seok Jin

Actor Ha Seok Jin earned 18 votes (or 1.40% of the total), ranking 9th, just like he did last year.

8.  It is a little pricey to get in, but it always has the best and liveliest crowd.
FacebookGoogle Maps

Gray – Similar to Pulse in size and feel, but more of a Korean crowd.
Facebook

Hamilton Hotel Pool – This is a summer only pool party, which is not exclusively gay, but you can find plenty of them here.

 As a foreigner, people will often give you a free pass for being different, but Koreans, however, are held to strict social and family standards. He previously was ranked 15th, meaning he jumped up five spots.

9. The actor has dropped two places since the previous ranking when he tied for first.

2.  Most women are stay at home moms and gender roles are very strict.

Tantra – A quiet gay bar with a few locals.  As a foreigner, I found that Korean people will tend to be more open-minded and let you off the hook for being gay (or just different).

If you are looking to live, teach, or study for a few years, then Korea can be a blast.  Restaurants will often have couples nights and typically, parks and public festivals are overflowing with people on dates.

The issue has become more and more accepted in very recent years with many public figures becoming advocates for the cause, however it is still a massive debate with generally a few more people against than for. 

There are moves being made, there is now even a show called ‘Marry Queer’ which will feature queer couples and discuss their relationships with some openly gay hosts and the relationships being looked at with a sympathetic lens on a major network.

However, this makes the few instances of the publicly gay celebrities in South Korea even braver for being openly themselves and facing the issues which come with being openly gay in this country.

The visibility these celebrities give towards being gay is what makes them so appreciated by LGBT+ citizens in Korea as well as international fans of Korean culture.

This list will list 9 of the most prominent openly gay celebrities in South Korea since there are unfortunately very few examples of celebrities who have been open about this element of their life.

However, to make up for this we have also included 6 celebrities in South Korea who have openly shown their support for the LGBT+ community and are strong allies because of this.

We have had more choice with this with more and more Korean celebrities voicing their support every year in spite of the backlash even doing this can cause.

Korean society is incredibly critical of its celebrities with it being very easy for the public to make their concerns with celebrities public.

With this being known, these are the most prominent gay Korean celebrities and those who openly support them!

Openly LGBT+ Korean Celebrities

These are the incredibly brave celebrities who are celebrities in Korean, or Korean in origin who openly identify as LGBT+.

Hong Seok- Cheon

When talking about gay figures in Korean entertainment, it is hard to overlook Hong Seok Cheon who is an incredibly famous TV personality in Korea who is very open about his sexuality in the public sphere.

He came out 22 years ago at the age of 30 in 2000 when the attitude towards LGBT+ individuals was even worse than it is now.

He has openly spoken about how bad the initial response to his sexuality was with him getting fired from most of his work incredibly quickly as well as receiving death threats and even thinking about suicide.

It took him 3 years after coming out to even be able to consider coming into the public sphere again, but since then he has been able to regain his popularity and has been able to hold down many jobs on TV for his lovable personality.

He is one of the MCs of the aforementioned Marry Queer reality show mentioned alongside K-pop star Hani from EXID and is shown talking to this idol about his experiences and being able to openly discuss and educate on TV in Korea which would have been unthinkable in the past. 

Holland

A very different example from the previous Holland made a solo debut in 2018 but not before having to go independent since his label refused to debut a gay idol even this recently.

He was open about this struggle and helped him gain an audience and has been able to maintain a strong fanbase in Korea as well as worldwide which would not have been possible if he remained repressed at his label.

He has been able to portray his sexuality in his music videos and has spoken about how this has been able to empower him, while also understanding how this restricts his career in Korea.

MRSHLL (Marshall Bang)

Marshall Bang is a Korean American singer who came out in an interview with Time Out in 2015 where he then became one of K-pop’s first openly gay artists.

MRSHLL has been able to maintain a career in both Korea and America and his skills as a singer and producer have been able to speak for themselves and lead him to success.

He has been open about the lack of acceptance he got from his parents, but has also shared that his brothers as well as chosen family were supportive of him.

KilliAN (Lin Jia Le)

KilliAN is a former trainee of one of the biggest Kpop companies being JYP entertainment and joined the company at the young age of just 14.

During his time at the company JYP was preparing to debut the now incredibly popular groups 2PM as well as 2AM, and it is widely accepted that he was planned to be one of the members of these boy groups.

However, he was not able to do so and flourish as he was kicked out of the label after he was discovered to be in a gay relationship with another male trainee at the company.

KilliAN has continued in his path to success but the story of him being kicked out of JYP is particularly tragic knowing the success of the 2 groups he could have been in.

Aquinas (Kang Min Soo)

This contestant on competition show High School Rapper competed in 2019 and ended up coming in an impressive 2nd place and was already known for his appearance on Show Me The Money in 2016 as well.

The rapper came out on Instagram in 2021 as bisexual and this got a mostly positive response.

 It may not be the best country for gay people, but that shouldn’t stop you from going. To give you perspective, I had my non-christian Korean friends tell me that the Catholics were considered the “open and progressive” church.

Protestants are majorly hardcore evangelists who take their beliefs very seriously, and are aggressive, especially if you aren’t Christian.

  One thing I was really shocked at is how much racism there is towards non-Koreans, be it black, Hispanic, white, or even from another Asians.  After the Korean War, evangelical missionaries wasted no time trying to spread Christianity far and wide throughout the country.  They are expected to study extremely hard, get a top notch job, get married and have kids.

I even passed him once in Itaewon and was only aware of his presence because of the massive swarm of fans around him attempting at getting his photo and autograph. 

There have been some other, more positive gay shows and movies, such as the reality show “Coming Out” which interviewed real Koreans about being gay in Korea.

Overall, dating culture in Korea is huge, and Korean couples, gay or straight get very invested in each other.  Just be aware that you are in a different country and be mindful about who you come out to, especially at work.

Am I glad I went?