It’s OK to be different… Kyu-jin, Se-yeon, and their daughter Lani
By Park Ju-yeon
Published Oct. 10, 2024
Translated by Marilyn
Hook
※
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.
 |
| 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 |
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.
 |
| Se-yeon and Kyu-jin laugh while looking at their daughter Lani. (Photo credit: Lee Hwon) |
- 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.”
Original Article:
https://ildaro.com/10020
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