Last Updated on May 26, 2024 by Kittredge Cherry
Yook Woo-Dang was a gay South Korean poet, activist and devout Catholic who took his own life to protest discrimination against LGBTQ people by church and society. He died April 26, 2003, at age 18.
“If they send me to hell, Jesus will rescue me,” he wrote in his suicide note and will. “How cruel and anti-biblical it is to discriminate against sexual minorities. After death, I want to go to heaven where I can proudly say I am gay, with no need to suffer, no need to hide myself anymore.”
His death shocked the nation and he became a national symbol of teenage sexual minorities, leading to some legal reforms for LGBTQ rights. Some see Woo-Dang as a Christ figure. His sacrifice and legacy continue to inspire South Korean LGBTQ activists and a literary award was established in his name.
Unfortunately Woo-Dang’s experience is far from rare. In the United States, gay student Tyler Clementi brought international attention to bullying-related suicide of LGBTQ youth by jumping to his death in 2010.
Help is available now at thetrevorproject.org (866-488-7386) for LGBTQ youth considering suicide.
Faith helped Yook Woo-Dang face bullying
Yook Woo-Dang (육우당 ) was born into a Roman Catholic family as Yun Hyon-seok (윤현석) on Aug. 7, 1984 in Incheon, South Korea. His baptismal name was Antonio.
Like many LGBTQ people of faith, Woo-Dang struggled to reconcile his Catholic faith with his gay identity. Christians comprise about 30 percent of the South Korean population. Fundamentalist Christians voice strong opposition to LGBTQ rights in South Korea, as in many other countries.
Yook Woo-Dang tells his parents, “I can’t be heterosexual and don’t want to be heterosexual” in a scene from the book “Heavenly LGBTQ+: Queer Icons from LGBTQ Life, Religion, and History” by Jan Haen, a Dutch artist and Roman Catholic priest. He tells Woo-Dang’s whole life story, including scenes that have never been portrayed by artists before.
Woo-Dang was bullied throughout his school years, becoming aware of his sexual orientation in middle school and dropping out of high school. His parents threw him out of their home when he came out to them as gay.
He tried to ease his loneliness by writing poetry, stories and social criticism that explore gay love, church hypocrisy, the repressive politics of homophobia and other themes. He expresses his queer Christian faith beautifully in this poem:
Sodom and Gomorrah
A story that frightens us
Holding the prestigious cross, the pastors
Drive us to the edge of the cliff
We try hard to avoid falling
If we fall
Jesus will save us
As he has shown love to prostitutes and the disabled
He’ll show us that love too
Warm love like a fluffy cotton blanket
Woo-Dang became active in the LGBTQ rights movement starting in 1999 and joined the activist group Solidarity for LGBT Human Rights of Korea (행동하는 성소수자 인권연대), known as DongInRyun.
He could not publish his writing under his own name due to objections about the homosexual content, especially from Christian conservatives. Instead he took the pen name Yook Woo-Dang, which means “a person who has only six friends.” He admitted that he was dependent on six friends: alcohol, cigarettes, sleeping pills, make-up foundation, green tea and a rosary.
Yook Woo-Dang prayed, “Let there come a world where homosexuals are not despised”
The conflict between Christianity and homosexuality reached a crisis point for Woo-Dang in April 2003. The Korean National Human Rights Protection Commission issued a request to stop classifying homosexuality as a “sexual perversion” and “obscenity.” This led to a furious fundamentalist Christian backlash as they issued a statement claiming that homosexuality was a sin leading to punishment in hell.
Cover of “Let My Spirit Rain Down as Flower Petals” by Yook Woo-Dang
A media frenzy followed as Woo-Dang rebuked Christians for stirring up hate against sexual minorities. He affirmed that love is not a sin and LGBTQ people are “children of God.” He even declared on April 11 that he would stop going to church. But two days later, he changed his mind, saying, “I can’t live outside of Catholicism.”
At that point he brought a crucifix and statue of the Virgin Mary to the DongInRyun office in Seoul. He explained that God’s power was desperately needed there because the LGBTQ group was so oppressed by society. Every day he prayed the rosary, asking God, “Let there come a world where homosexuals are not despised.”
Woo-Dang committed suicide by hanging himself in the DongInRyun office on April 26, 2003. His fellow gay activists discovered his body with a pile of 75 original poems, a six-page suicide note and will, two bottles of traditional Korean liquor and tear-soaked tissues.
“It is so heartbreaking that I have not been treated as a human in our society because of being gay. My life as a homosexual was also difficult, but now I feel so sad that I have to hear Sodom, Gomorrah, and the judgment of God’s hellfire. Sometime a better day will come…” he wrote. “If after I die, I can give perception to Christian hypocrites, my death will never be sad.”
He bequeathed his rosary and about $30, which was all he had, to the DongInRyun LGBTQ grouop. “Please use this money for the liberation of sexual minorities…Brothers and sisters, please don’t forget that only your efforts will make an impact for our next generation of homosexuals,” he wrote.
Woo-Dang also wished God’s forgiveness and peace upon those who drove him to death. As he requested, he had a Catholic funeral with a priest presiding over mass.
His death brought massive national news coverage to the plight of LGBTQ youth, perhaps similar to the death of Matthew Shepard in America. Korea was still a society that stigmatized homosexuality as “the love that dare not speak its name,” and Woo-Dang’s real name was not made public until years after he died. Photos of him are still virtually impossible to find on the Internet. Homophobic language from was removed from Korean laws in response to his death.
Woo-Dang’s life calls to mind another gay writer who killed himself to protest church teachings against homosexuality. Italian author Alfredo Ormando died as a result of setting himself on fire outside Saint Peter’s Basilica near where the Pope was addressing crowds on Jan. 23, 1998. His action is similar to the Buddhist monks who immolated themselves in protest during the Vietnam War.
Remembering Yook Woo-Dang
On the 10th anniversary of Woo-Dang’s death, a large memorial service was held at the Franciscan Education Center in Seoul. At least one speaker there compared him to Christ: “He loved God more than anyone else, and he did not resist the threats of religious and political power. He lost his life for the human rights of the few who remained. He was treated as a sinner and a heretic by the powerful. He reminds me of the one who had died for the world. Woo-Dang was a true Jesus-like person.”
A naked Jesus reveals his wounds in “The Korean Christ” by Robert Lentz. Prints are available from Amazon and Trinity Stores.
Church leaders present included Theodore Jennings, a Chicago Theological Seminary professor who wrote “The Man Jesus Loved: Homoerotic Narratives from the New Testament” and other landmark books affirming queer people the Bible.
Jenning’s message to the crowd put Woo-Dang’s death into context with a call to action:
“On behalf of the LGBTQ Center at the Chicago Theological Seminary I greet all my friends associated with the DongInRyun on this tenth anniversary of the death of one of its precious members, Yook Woo-Dang. …. When we join our hands and our voices together for the sake of the rights of LGBT people it is not simply a matter of changing this or that law for the sake of this or that group. It is a matter of life and death…. So with love for the fallen, with love for all who are silenced, with love for all who feel despair, we gather our voices and our hearts today. Empowered by that love we will never turn back in our struggle until all are welcomed, all lives are precious, all live in dignity.”
Another theologian, Min-Ah Cho of St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota, tells Woo-Dang’s story in her chapter in the book “Reading Minjung Theology in the 21st Century.” Literally meaning “people’s theology,” minjung theology is a South Korean form of liberation theology developed in the 1970s.
In 2013 Woo-Dang’s poetry was published posthumously by DongInRyun) a book titled, “Let My Spirit Rain Down as Flower Petals” (육우당: 내 혼은 꽃비 되어).
Links related to Yook Woo-Dang
Need help? Call the TrevorLifeline at 866-488-7386 or go to thetrevorproject.org, a 24/7 national help line for LGBTQ youth. Trained counselors are here to support you if you are a young person in crisis, feeling suicidal, or in need of a safe and judgment-free place to talk.
When I’m Forbidden: Ten Shijo (Poems) by Yook Woo-dang (thethreewisemonkeys.com)
English translation of Korean Wikipedia article on Yook Woo-Dang (This is the most complete online summary of his life, philosophy and impact.
Pastor suspended for blessing LGBTQ questions meaning of love in church (Korea Times, April 29, 2021. Interview with Lee Dong-hwan)
Alana Chen: After conversion therapy, parents blame Catholic ministers for lesbian daughter’s suicide
무지개 그리스도 기도 (Rainbow Christ Prayer in Korean): LGBT flag reveals the queer Christ 무지개 깃발은 퀴어 그리스도를 드러냅니다
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Top image credit:
Image from the cover of “Let My Spirit Rain Down as Flower Petals” by Yook Woo-Dang, published by Solidarity for LGBT Human Rights of Korea (Donginryun). Color version originally published by the Three Wise Monkeys, an independent sociocultural media site based in South Korea.
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This post is part of the LGBTQ Saints series by Kittredge Cherry. Traditional and alternative saints, people in the Bible, LGBT and queer martyrs, authors, theologians, religious leaders, artists, deities and other figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people and our allies are covered.
This article was originally published on Q Spirit in April 2020 and was expanded with new material over time and most recently updated on May 25, 2024.
Copyright 2020 © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
Qspirit.net presents the Jesus in Love Blog on LGBTQ spirituality.
Thank you for posting this. Suicide from bullying, or from the quiet bullying that non-acceptance and intolerance are, happens all too often; even once is once too often. We human beings love according to our natures; nature is God-given, and God does not make mistakes. The logical conclusion should be obvious.
Thank you for this beautiful, heartbreaking story of a queer saint who was unknown to me.
Yook Woo-Dang was unknown to me too, even though I searched for LGBTQ Korean saints. I was “led” to him by theologian Ted Jennings. When I was writing Ted’s obituary recently, I discovered Ted’s speech about Yook Woo-Dang.
I really want to say this thing. At that time many lgbt terms were not known to people so they used the word gay as the umbrella term. However, Yook Woo Dang was actually a transgender woman, not a gay man. I suggest you to watch the short film Lipstick
made in her memory that will clear up this confusion. Here’s the link if you want
Thank you for your insights and the link to the powerful film “Lipstick.” It sheds new light on Yook Woo-Dang, who confessed love for cosmetics.