Dis/Enabled Queerness：Cripping “Coming Out” and Resisting Heteronormative Ableism in Taiwan
OUYANG Shanshan, LEE Po-Hanlast: update: 20251011
◆OUYANG Shanshan, LEE Po-Han 2025/10/25-26 "Dis/Enabled Queerness：Cripping 'Coming Out' and Resisting Heteronormative Ableism in Taiwan", 障害学国際セミナー2025, 於：京都（日本）
◇障害学国際セミナー2025 ◇障害学国際セミナー
◇障害学
Data was collected through participant observation and life-story interviews conducted between 2019 and 2025. Three key interlocutors—Vincent, Carlos, and Julia, all wheelchair users with physical disabilities—provided crucial insights into the intersections of disability, queerness, and social justice. Their life trajectories and activist engagements highlight the complex dynamics of identity, resistance, and empowerment. Life-story methods were used to uncover these layered experiences and forms of activism.
- 殘酷兒(Disabled+Queer) 2008
・participated in Taipei Pride, the first public coming out of disabled LGBTQ+ individuals in Taiwan (Ouyang 2023).
“殘酷兒”, blending the words for “disabled” and “queer,” while also subverting ableist and heteronormative language. Despite initial resistance—even from LGBTQ+ peers who said the term sounded “too cruel”—Vincent insisted on reclaiming this language as a source of strength, rather than shame or fear.
・Their participation triggered structural changes in the Pride event ramps were installed, sign language interpretation was introduced, and a designated accessible viewing area was created.
・In 2010, Vincent proposed a disability rights parade, shifting from celebration to confronting survival issues like transport and inclusion. This led to the Myriad-Barriers Alliance, which staged a wheelchair sit-in at Taipei Station. Pressured to resign over his sexuality by church-based groups, Vincent instead gained support from LGBTQ+ allies, marking a pivotal “coming out” for the disability movement and fostering cross-movement solidarity.
2) Coming Out in the Private Sphere
- shaped by cultural and familial contexts
Vincent: introduce gradually disability and caregiving to his same-sex partner to his family.
Carlos: disclosure at home due to conservative values but selectively comes out in safe spaces.
Julia: received a dismissive response but saw quiet political support from her father.
・Their experiences challenge coming out as a singular and definitive act, highlighting diverse strategies that align with cultural, familial, and situational constraints. These life stories reaffirm the importance of intersectional and relational approaches to understanding coming out within disabled queer communities.
3) Relational, Coalitional Movement
- 手天使(Hand Angel) 2013
・advocating for the sexual rights of disabled people
Facing exclusion in both movements, members like Vincent, Carlos, and Julia sought to address ableism and heteronormativity in public perceptions of disabled intimacy.
・Hand Angel empowers through both intimate experiences and the right to refuse, redefining consent, autonomy, and care. The shift from visibility-focused activism to deeper engagement with sexuality and self-determination marks a significant evolution in Taiwan’s intersectional queer-disability movement, centering lived experiences and challenging societal norms.
Queer disabled activists in Taiwan navigate a paradox of hypervisibility and invisibility: disability is stigmatized as “discredited”, while sexuality remains “discreditable” (Goffman, 1963). For them, “coming out” is not a singular act but an ongoing negotiation across public/private and LGBTQ/disability axes. The coinage “殘酷兒” exemplifies this, reclaiming stigma as collective identity rooted in Taiwanese contexts. Pride accessibility reforms and Vincent’s leadership in disability rights activism reveal how cross-movement solidarities challenge ableist-heteronormativity. Beyond marches, private intimacies—such as reliance reframed as connection—illustrate everyday resistance. These cases complicate universalized “coming out” narratives, showing that visibility, while crucial, is insufficient alone. Instead, disabled queer activism emphasizes “creating crip” spaces, enacting transformative politics that remake the conditions of recognition for both queerness and disability.
2) Contextualizing “Coming Out”
Coming out for disabled queer people in Taiwan is not linear but relational, shaped by family norms of “家” (family/home), “和” (harmony/peace), and “孝” (filial piety/offsprings’ obedience), and by compulsory able-bodiedness. Narratives show strategies of gradual negotiation, strategic passing, and activist-driven disclosure, where disability shapes risks, protections, and recognition.
3) Undoing De-Sexualization
Sexual rights are often neglected in both disability and LGBTQ+ activism, despite being essential. Disabled individuals face not only physical and social barriers but also erasure in conversations about intimacy and desire. In Taiwan, the collaboration between Disabled+Queer and Tongzhi Hotline led to the creation of Hand Angel—a project that queers disability advocacy and crips LGBTQ+ activism. Hand Angel challenges compulsory asexuality and shifts the focus from visibility and legal recognition to bodily autonomy and sexual pleasure (Martino & Campbell, 2019; Yau, 2019). Through sex education, peer support, and policy advocacy, it redefines intersectional activism around intimacy, access, and the right to sexual expression.
＊作成：中井 良平
◇障害学国際セミナー2025 ◇障害学国際セミナー
◇障害学
OUYANG Shanshan, LEE Po-Han 2025/10/25-26 "Dis/Enabled Queerness：Cripping 'Coming Out' and Resisting Heteronormative Ableism in Taiwan"
OUYANG Shanshan(Ritsumeikan University)
LEE Po-Han (National Taiwan University)
LEE Po-Han (National Taiwan University)
Introduction/ Purpose
This chapter examines disabled queer activism in Taiwan and its shift from visibility politics to intimate citizenship. Although scholarship on disabled queer life in Asia remains sparse, Taiwan’s activism has expanded—especially since marriage equality in 2019. Building on the long-standing presence of Disabled+Queer at Taipei Pride since 2008 and the emergence of Hand Angel, we analyze how disabled LGBTQ+ people contest ableism and heteronormativity across public and private spheres.Method
This study explores how disabled queer activists in Taiwan come out, navigate marginalization, and influence both disability and LGBTQ+ movements.Data was collected through participant observation and life-story interviews conducted between 2019 and 2025. Three key interlocutors—Vincent, Carlos, and Julia, all wheelchair users with physical disabilities—provided crucial insights into the intersections of disability, queerness, and social justice. Their life trajectories and activist engagements highlight the complex dynamics of identity, resistance, and empowerment. Life-story methods were used to uncover these layered experiences and forms of activism.
Findings
1) Coming Out to the Public Sphere- 殘酷兒(Disabled+Queer) 2008
・participated in Taipei Pride, the first public coming out of disabled LGBTQ+ individuals in Taiwan (Ouyang 2023).
“殘酷兒”, blending the words for “disabled” and “queer,” while also subverting ableist and heteronormative language. Despite initial resistance—even from LGBTQ+ peers who said the term sounded “too cruel”—Vincent insisted on reclaiming this language as a source of strength, rather than shame or fear.
・Their participation triggered structural changes in the Pride event ramps were installed, sign language interpretation was introduced, and a designated accessible viewing area was created.
・In 2010, Vincent proposed a disability rights parade, shifting from celebration to confronting survival issues like transport and inclusion. This led to the Myriad-Barriers Alliance, which staged a wheelchair sit-in at Taipei Station. Pressured to resign over his sexuality by church-based groups, Vincent instead gained support from LGBTQ+ allies, marking a pivotal “coming out” for the disability movement and fostering cross-movement solidarity.
2) Coming Out in the Private Sphere
- shaped by cultural and familial contexts
Vincent: introduce gradually disability and caregiving to his same-sex partner to his family.
Carlos: disclosure at home due to conservative values but selectively comes out in safe spaces.
Julia: received a dismissive response but saw quiet political support from her father.
・Their experiences challenge coming out as a singular and definitive act, highlighting diverse strategies that align with cultural, familial, and situational constraints. These life stories reaffirm the importance of intersectional and relational approaches to understanding coming out within disabled queer communities.
3) Relational, Coalitional Movement
- 手天使(Hand Angel) 2013
・advocating for the sexual rights of disabled people
Facing exclusion in both movements, members like Vincent, Carlos, and Julia sought to address ableism and heteronormativity in public perceptions of disabled intimacy.
・Hand Angel empowers through both intimate experiences and the right to refuse, redefining consent, autonomy, and care. The shift from visibility-focused activism to deeper engagement with sexuality and self-determination marks a significant evolution in Taiwan’s intersectional queer-disability movement, centering lived experiences and challenging societal norms.
Discussion
1) Creating Crip-Queer SpacesQueer disabled activists in Taiwan navigate a paradox of hypervisibility and invisibility: disability is stigmatized as “discredited”, while sexuality remains “discreditable” (Goffman, 1963). For them, “coming out” is not a singular act but an ongoing negotiation across public/private and LGBTQ/disability axes. The coinage “殘酷兒” exemplifies this, reclaiming stigma as collective identity rooted in Taiwanese contexts. Pride accessibility reforms and Vincent’s leadership in disability rights activism reveal how cross-movement solidarities challenge ableist-heteronormativity. Beyond marches, private intimacies—such as reliance reframed as connection—illustrate everyday resistance. These cases complicate universalized “coming out” narratives, showing that visibility, while crucial, is insufficient alone. Instead, disabled queer activism emphasizes “creating crip” spaces, enacting transformative politics that remake the conditions of recognition for both queerness and disability.
2) Contextualizing “Coming Out”
Coming out for disabled queer people in Taiwan is not linear but relational, shaped by family norms of “家” (family/home), “和” (harmony/peace), and “孝” (filial piety/offsprings’ obedience), and by compulsory able-bodiedness. Narratives show strategies of gradual negotiation, strategic passing, and activist-driven disclosure, where disability shapes risks, protections, and recognition.
3) Undoing De-Sexualization
Sexual rights are often neglected in both disability and LGBTQ+ activism, despite being essential. Disabled individuals face not only physical and social barriers but also erasure in conversations about intimacy and desire. In Taiwan, the collaboration between Disabled+Queer and Tongzhi Hotline led to the creation of Hand Angel—a project that queers disability advocacy and crips LGBTQ+ activism. Hand Angel challenges compulsory asexuality and shifts the focus from visibility and legal recognition to bodily autonomy and sexual pleasure (Martino & Campbell, 2019; Yau, 2019). Through sex education, peer support, and policy advocacy, it redefines intersectional activism around intimacy, access, and the right to sexual expression.
Conclusion
Disabled and enabled queerness highlights the tension between structural disablement and enabling practices by disabled queer activists. Strategies like Disabled+Queer and Hand Angel transform constraints into care, challenge sexual stigma, and reconfigure public and private spaces. Beyond “coming out,” these activists create crip spaces that interrogate compulsory able-bodiedness, fostering intimacy, empowerment, and relational justice in Taiwan’s LGBTQ+ and disability movements.Acknowledgment
This work has been supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP20J21415 and the Shibusawa Fund for Ethnological Studies. It is also (partly) supported by the Population Health and Well-Being Research Center from the Featured Areas Research Center Program within the framework of the Higher Education Sprout Project by the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Taiwan (Grant Number NTU-114L900401).References
- Chou, W.-S. (2000). Tongzhi: Politics of same-sex eroticism in Chinese societies. Routledge.
- Goffman, E.(1963). Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity, Prentice-Hall.
- Martino, A. S., & Campbell, M. (2019). Exercising intimate citizenship rights and (re)constructing sexualities: The new place of sexuality in disability activism. In M. Berghs, T. Chataika, Y. El-Lahib, & K. Dube (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of disability activism (pp. 97–109). Routledge.
- Huang, S., & Brouwer, D. C. (2018). Coming out, coming home, coming with: Models of queer sexuality in contemporary China. Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, 11(2), 97–116.
- Sandahl, C. (2003). Queering the crip or cripping the queer? Intersections of queer and crip identities in solo autobiographical performance. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 9(1–2), 25–56.
- Yau, C. (2019). Sex and stigma: The impact of structural violence on people with. disabilities in Taiwan. China Journal of Social Work, 12(2), 100–118.
- Lee, P.-H. (2017). Queer activism in Taiwan: An emergent rainbow coalition from the. assemblage perspective. The Sociological Review, 65(4), 682–698.
- Lee, P.-H., & Torres Celis, S. (2024). Crip-queer intimacy, alliance and activism: Towards. holistic sexuality education in Taiwan. Sex Education, 24(4), 562–577.
- 欧陽珊珊(Ouyang, Shanshan), 2023,「第５章：残酷児――台湾における障害のある性的少数者の実践」菊地夏野・堀江有里・飯野由里子編『クィア・スタディーズをひらく３』晃洋書房，108-135.
- 欧陽珊珊(Ouyang, Shanshan), 2024,「カミングアウトをめぐる可変的な交渉過程――ある障害をもつ男性同性愛者の経験を事例に」『Gender and Sexuality』19：47-68.