※ Editor’s note: There are currently 38 countries across the world where same-sex marriage is allowed. In Asia, now that same-sex couples in Thailand will be able to register their marriages starting next January, there is marriage equality in Taiwan, Nepal, and Thailand. In some areas of Japan, same-sex couples can register their partnership system, and lawsuits to legalize same-sex marriage are ongoing. A lawsuit raising the possibility for marriage equality in Korea will begin on October 10, 2024. This historic lawsuit comes ten years after Kim-Jo Gwang-soo and Kim Seung-hwan filed their ultimately-unsuccessful suit arguing that the decision not to process same-sex marriage registrations is unfair. This article features an interview with one of the eleven couples in the plaintiff group.

 

▲ Se-yeon and Kyu-jin laugh while looking at their daughter Lani. (Photo credit: Lee Hwon)

 

Kim Gyu-jin, who introduces herself as a “married lesbian of South Korean nationality,” has been conducting media interviews and engaging in activism as an out lesbian since 2019. She wrote the book Eonni, Will You Marry Me? (published by Wisdom House) in 2020 and gave birth in 2023. With the creation of this “momo” [mom-mom] family, Kim Gyu-jin’s spouse Kim Se-yeon also revealed herself to the public for the first time. Recently, the couple appeared in All Families, a documentary series produced by the domestic streaming platform Waave, and showed the world their life together. Since the two have always spoken out confidently in this way, their participation in the lawsuit was not surprising. However, I was curious about the story of this family that Korean society pretends not to know about—about their life, their happiness and joys, and their struggles against discrimination.

 

One public holiday, I visited the home of two working mothers who were struggling to take care of their child and cats without a moment to rest. Although there were a few incidents of a cat wandering over to the table and pressing the keys of my laptop for me, the interview went more smoothly than expected(?). Through the interview, I could clearly see that rather than saying, “You’ve already formed a family, why do you need legal recognition?”, we should build a system that can support this family’s life, and we need more allies.

 

- Shall we start with the story of your marriage? What motivated you to hold your wedding in 2019?

 

Se-yeon: To be honest, I didn’t have romantic childhood dreams about my wedding or anything like that.  We had the wedding for social reasons. Since there’s no recognition of same-sex couples in Korean society right now, we felt like we had to get our families, friends, and coworkers together and show them something official. It felt like we had to do that for those people to take us seriously. Even though it wasn’t strictly necessary.

 

Kyu-jin: When I would go to my heterosexual friends’ weddings, I was happy for them, but I was very bitter at the same time. Sometimes I would even cry at home afterwards, thinking, ‘I’ll never in my life get to do that.’ So that’s why I actually wanted a ‘normal’, wedding-hall wedding, I think. Actually, I think that having your marriage recognized (by people around you) without a wedding like this, after just registering the marriage, is a form of heterosexual privilege. For same-sex couples, even if we live together and are in a common-law marriage, most of the time we’re not taken seriously. Even now, there are some people who call my wife my “girlfriend.”

 

- Did you start living together before you were married?

 

Kyu-jin: I’m a conservative person (laughs), so I thought we couldn’t live together before marriage. But we did move in together after we registered our marriage in the U.S. Even though the wedding ceremony came later.

 

- Ah, so you’re a person who follows tradition(?) (Laughs) Then did you have any worries when you got married? Because you were about to start living together for the first time.

 

Kyu-jin: Sure, I was nervous. We’d both lived alone for a long time. I moved out of my parents’ home during university, and my wife did in her last year of middle school, so we wondered if we could adjust to living with someone else again. Very luckily, both of us are the type to let small things go, so we’ve been able to get along alright.

 

Se-yeon: We fold socks differently, but we’ve had to learn to live with that. Kyu-jin has her way, and she doesn’t like mine? I say, “OK, then you fold all of them.” (Laughs) So then we each do things our own way and the other person lets it go.

 

- I heard that after you had been married for a bit and were living in France for a work assignment, your boss asked you, “Are you going to have children?” and that’s what made you start thinking about children. If you hadn’t heard that question, would you have never thought about the possibility?

 

Kyu-jin: Well, we started thinking about getting married after reading someone's blog. I saw a post that said, "I'm in Canada, and here, foreigners can get married, same-sex marriage is possible," and thought, “Oh, there’s a way to do it.” As for pregnancy and childbirth, I did start thinking about it when I told my boss in France that we were a lesbian couple, and they naturally said, "Are you going to have kids?" But even if that hadn't happened, eventually I would have thought about it. Around that time, two lesbian couples I knew were considering having kids. So it was because of my age and environment. Since I was overseas, I was in an environment where it was easy to have a kid.

 

Se-yeon: When she first started talking about having a child, I was a little surprised, and I don't think it really seemed possible. It was something I hadn't thought about at all. So at first, I wasn't like “Great!” or “No way.” It was more like that if Kyu-jin wanted to have a child, I would support that choice, and if she wanted to raise the child with me, I could do that with her.

 

▲ Kyu-jin and Se-yeon smile onstage with ten other couples at the press conference marking the start of their marriage equality suit. The event was put on by Marriage For All, Minbyun (Lawyers for a Democratic Society), and the Center for Public Interest Human Rights Litigation at Seoul’s Grand Convention Center on the morning of October 10.

- Even if you had both made up your mind, “OK, we’re ready to do this,” you still can’t ignore the social environment, right? A society that discriminates against sexual minorities [LGBTQ+ people], as well as one that’s expected to experience disasters because of climate change… and these are not problems that you can solve through your own actions.

 

Kyu-jin: True. You can’t say that right now is a good time to have a child. And especially as a lesbian couple having a child in Korea, we had to think hard about it. We decided to accept these facts. Instead of acknowledging that having a child is a selfish choice, we want to take responsibility for the child as best we can. After all, my wife and I are not the only minorities. There are many parents with minority identities, and we take heart from the fact that even for those without [minority identities], it’s difficult to become a  perfect parent.

 

When you get sperm at a fertility clinic in Belgium, they have you do two sessions of psychological counseling. The counselor asked me, “What will you do if the child experiences discrimination from others?” When I replied, “I’ll make sure they don’t by taking steps ahead of time, like meeting with their teacher and explaining the situation to other parents at the school,” the counselor said, “You can’t protect a child forever. The important thing is that when your child is at home, they are loved and safe.” I agreed with that and decided to do what I could do at home so that my child could grow up to be independent.

 

Se-yeon: If you start worrying, you’ll never stop. This may make me a somewhat irresponsible person, but I think I just thought that once the child was born, we just had to take good care of them. And that if we surrounded them with good people, they would have a kind of safety net. If it truly wasn’t working out, we’d leave Korea. I had a positive outlook.

 

- So Lani was born, and your momo family was created. Since prejudices and stereotypes about gender roles in childrearing are strong,  some people still believe that kids need a dad in the end, or [for others] there’s the fantasy that everything would be great if both parents were moms. What’s it really like?

 

Kyu-jin: It’s not that she needs a dad, but it would be nice to have a two-meter-tall, 120-kilogram baggage porter(?). (Laughs) First of all, since gender roles aren't divided, there's no "of course you should do this." So there's no fighting, and the two of us work together and share the load, which is definitely good. But the mom that everyone thinks of, who manages everything by herself—it’s not like there’s two of her. It’s more like two people each doing not one full serving but 0.8 servings—? Wouldn’t it be similar for gay couples? Just because they’re two fathers, it probably doesn't mean they can't do anything [like the stereotype of heterosexual fathers].

 

Se-yeon: Two fathers, two mothers—there probably isn’t any gap in abilities. That said, because of social perceptions, if it’s two mothers, the expectations are going to be a bit higher.

 

Kyu-jin: Those people [who think that way] would be surprised if they saw our parenting… (Laughs)

 

Se-yeon: Sending her to daycare in the same clothes for a week and whatnot. (Laughs)

 

Kyu-jin: We’re not the kind of moms that the world has in mind. (Laughs) To be honest, the person who plays the biggest role is our babysitter. And we’ve been sending our daughter to daycare since she was six months old. So the daycare and our babysitter shoulder a lot of the burden of childcare. We really only take care of her ourselves on the weekends and holidays.

 

- Raising a child has its difficulties, but these days there’s also too much competition about early education or whatever—it seems like there’re a lot of stressors in different areas.

 

Kyu-jin: It does seem like people around us are making their children compete excessively from a young age. It is true that raising children is becoming a lot more difficult, aside from the fact that I’m a lesbian and we’re a momo family.

 

Se-yeon: Before, I wasn't really interested in social issues unless they were related to sexual minorities. But now, I find myself thinking about a lot of things. Also, my boss, colleagues, and friends at work gave me a lot of gifts before we had a baby and started raising a child, and they told me to reach out to them if I had any difficulties. I don’t think I’d done that for anyone else [who was having a child], so it made me reflect a bit. I used to think that issues related to children were not my concern, but now I can't help but be interested in them.

 

▲ A family picture of married couple Kyu-Jin (left) and Se-yeon with their daughter Lani and Pepper, one of their two cats. (c) Ilda

 

- As you’ve given birth and started raising a child, what have you felt, or realized is needed?

 

Kyu-jin: From sending her to daycare, we’ve learned that childcare institutions are well-run. At daycare, they feed her, change her diapers, and have new activities for her every single day. It’s great. But not everyone can afford to use a daycare center, and there are cases where they can’t get a spot, so I think it would be good if their scope was expanded. And there is government support for the first couple of years after birth, but I think there is not enough support when the child stops being a baby and becomes a child or teenager.

 

In the current Korean social system, we are a ‘single-parent’ family. So I’ve found out that it’s very difficult to get support as a single parent. If you own a home or even your own car, you don’t qualify for financial support. Income is certainly one problem for single-parent families, but really, the fact that there’s absolutely no one to take care of the child [for you] is also a big problem. I think there should be support in that area as well.

 

My wife (Se-yeon) is not a legal guardian to Lani, so she has no rights. If I died, I don't know if she’d be able to adopt Rani, if the judge would allow it. In fact, access to reproductive rights for same-sex couples is almost impossible in Korea. There are no sperm banks, and it is very difficult for unmarried women to get IVF (in vitro fertilization). I think something needs to change.

 

- There’s also concern within the queer community about same-sex couples and sexual minority couples getting married, getting pregnant, giving birth, and raising children. They say this path is too in line with normality, and in the future, there may be further demands for normality (being the same as heterosexuals), and so there should be caution in that regard.

 

Se-yeon: I think Korean society still has a ways to go (before it’s at that point). (For sexual minorities,) everything is still seen as straying from the norm. Even when we get married and have kids, there are still people who see our lives as deviant.  Even if you simply get married, get pregnant, give birth, and raise a child, it seems like you can't easily belong to 'normal society'.

 

Kyu-jin: I know why [sexual minorities] worry about that, and I get it. But I also think that Korean society is still far from that.  I also want us to look into the fact that we have this desire within ourselves. My queer friends around me say, “When my other queer friend talks about you, they say actually they want to have a child too.” So some people have this desire. Among queers, there are those who don’t want to get married and those who think that there needs to be a different system other than marriage, but there are also those who want to get married. I think we need to expand our options so that everyone can make the choices they want.

 

- As your daughter grows up, it seems like the scope of your coming out will become wider. And you’ll have more contact with non-queer society.

 

Se-yeon: When Kyu-jin and I were dating, or when we were married and just by ourselves, as a queer person I generally felt safe. We only spent time with people who knew who we were or who were queer themselves, so there weren't many times that we were uncomfortable. But after Lani, things have changed. With our child, we’ve had to face our neighbors and many heterosexual couples we thought we would never mix with. We can’t hide ourselves anymore.

 

Kyu-jin: When we speak out like this as openly queer people, it comes with a certain sense of representation, so we try to tell good stories and positive stories as much as possible. But of course, not all the parents at the daycare center welcome us. We had a daycare center sports day a while ago, and I was so scared for three days before. Though I can’t be sure they’re all non-queer—still, we’re going to be alone among families like that. I think about what kind of unexpected situations might arise, and how I would deal with them, and feel so uncertain, and also sad that I even have to think about this…

 

Se-yeon: Since Lani’s so little, there isn’t much going on yet. However, when she starts talking and makes friends, and they start visiting each other's houses, we’ll need to be more prepared. And we’ll need to consider variables related to those things. I think I'll keep worrying and worrying about what to do and how to do it.

 

Kyu-jin: From my experience so far, in a group of, say, ten people, there’s usually at least one active ally/supporter. It's really surprising when, even without me saying anything, they say, "If you have a hard time, please tell me and I’ll help you." Of course, there are also active homophobes. But the allies keep the homophobes in line. Seeing that made me realize that there’s hope, and it made me realize once again that it’s important to make a lot of allies in our society.

 

Se-yeon: We didn't try to make friends with our neighbors, but since we have a child, people talk to us and say hello when we get on the elevator. One elderly woman even said she’d pass her grandchild’s [toy] car on to us, and is so nice to us whenever we see her.

 

Kyu-jin: When we told her Lani has two moms, she was confused for a moment but then accepted us right away.

 

Se-yeon: She said Lani’s lucky to have two moms. (Laughs)

 

▲ Kim Se-yeon spoke at the October 10 press conference. The lawsuit challenges the administrative decision not to accept the marriage registration of same-sex couples. Eleven such couples are participating as plaintiffs and will dispute the constitutionality of the current Civil Act.

- To be honest, there are still people in the queer community or the lesbian community who say, "It’ll all be fine if we just try to live quietly." Public opinion outside the community is the same. You two have made a family and your lives are relatively stable, so why do you continue to engage in activism? And you're participating in this marriage equality lawsuit.

 

Kyu-jin: Different people may think differently, but to me, living quietly is actually living in hiding, turning a blind eye [to social discrimination], and living a lie. When I was young, whenever people around me asked me about my love life, it was so hard to know how much I should reveal and how much I should hide. It was stressful. I thought it was more true to myself to just reveal it. Also, the reason I'm speaking out like this is because I've received help from people who have spoken out before. The reason I was able to get married was because someone wrote about it on their blog.

 

Of course, I don't think everyone needs to join fight, and I don't think they can, but I think that in order to claim some rights, there need to be people who stand up, reveal their names and faces, and speak out. I was fortunate enough to be born with many advantages. I grew up in a wealthy family, lived abroad, and work at a foreign company. So shouldn't I stand up and speak out?

 

Se-yeon: Kyu-jin will say to me, “The well-off have to do this kind of thing.” (Laughs)

 

Kyu-jin: This lawsuit… Actually, I was worried that they wouldn’t let us join it. (Laughs) They (Marriage for All, which put the lawsuit together) said that they wanted to make the plaintiff group diverse. But it already had many women in their 30s living in Seoul. (Laughs) I was also worried because we have a child. Our actions will affect our child’s future. But I thought that’s why moms should fight with their names on the line. We have to change the world for our children.

 

-You’re doing it for the world that Lani will grow up in. For her future.

 

Se-yeon: If the three of us could just live happily, we wouldn't have filed this lawsuit. But that's impossible. If we just live quietly, we're giving up a lot of things. Actually, I used to live like that, but after seeing Kyu-jin living openly as a lesbian, I realized that I have rights that I can't get at work because I'm a sexual minority. I had given up because I thought that losing out was unavoidable, but now I can't live like that.

 

Kyu-jin: We're not living on a deserted island. When Lani goes to school, she can't be ashamed to say, "I have two moms." We have to work hard to bring about a world without discrimination. Because there are other lesbian couples raising children too, but we're the ones who can step forward.

 

Se-yeon: Later, when Lani goes to school and tries to make friends, she might face discrimination or homophobia. When she asks, “What have you done so far? Have you done anything besides giving birth to me?”, we need to be able to answer her. If the world hasn’t changed by then, we need to be able to tell her it’s not for lack of effort on our part.

 

Kyu-jin: There are actually some good changes happening right now, and we’re slowly making more friends and allies. It's rare to find a kid with this many aunts and uncles, right? (Laughs) In that sense, there are advantages.

 

Se-yeon: These days, the two of us always talk about how  of course raising a child is hard, but when we see Lani, she’s so cute and delightful.

 

Kyu-jin: I used to be skeptical of people who say that just seeing their child smile puts them in a good mood, but—though maybe we’re trained to be like this— it’s true!

 

Se-yeon: So we both have to do our best for her as the heads of the family![1]

(Everyone laughs)

 

[1] Translator’s note: This makes everyone laugh because while the word used (gajang) technically means “head of the family,” it strongly implies maleness, basically like “man of the house.” [Translated by Marilyn Hook]

 

*Original Article: https://ildaro.com/10020 Published Oct. 10, 2024

 

◆ To see more English-language articles from Ilda, visit our English blog(https://ildaro.blogspot.com).

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