What it's like to be gay in North Korea

According to a defector, the term 'homosexuality' is not a concept in North Korea. Photo / Getty

An openly gay North Korean defector has revealed the moment he found out what homosexuality was and how being his true self wasn't an option in his country.

In an interview with US broadcaster CNN, Jang Yeong-jin said it wasn't until he was 37 and had escaped to the South when his life suddenly made sense.

Mr Jang said he always felt different but couldn't figure out what was wrong with him.
Sitting in a doctor's surgery in 1998 he read an article on homosexuality which changed his life.

"That was the first time I knew what homosexuality was and I was really pleased," he said.

"I was 37-years-old by that time and thought I would be living alone for my entire life after leaving North Korea since I could not live with a woman."

He also details how he never loved his wife and felt as if he ruined his life.

"When I was in Pyongyang University, I went to see a neurologist, wondering why I was so different to others," he told CNN's Paula Hancocks.

"But as soon as I started talking about my feelings, I had to run out of the office, because the doctor started yelling at me."

Mr Jang eventually figured out he was in love with a childhood friend who he had occasionally shared a bed with and held hands with which he said wasn't unusual given their wives knew how close they were.

Jang Yeong-jin says he knows of other people in North Korea who have had the same experience. Photo / Jang Yeong-jin

Still it wasn't enough and he knew he had to leave North Korea. He escaped into China in 1996 where he spent 13 months attempting to get to South Korea.

He made the decision to re-enter North Korea and made the dangerous crossing across the heavily demilitarised border with South Korea, something few defectors have achieved but was possible given his military background and training.

'NOT TALKED ABOUT'

Mr Yang said there he met others who were in a similar situation but many struggled to explain their feelings.

He said one senior officer in the military who was married had the same problem as he did while another man had lived alone and never married.

"North Korea society treats these people as abnormal," he said.

While being gay is not illegal in North Korea defectors routinely admit they've never even heard of it until they've fled their home country.

In a 2013 interview with NK News, Hazel Smith, a North Korea watcher at nonpartisan policy forum the Wilson Institute, said homosexuality conceptually didn't exist.

"The way people think isn't in that way," she said. "Being gay is simply not recognised.

"You have flourishing same-sex relationships before marriage - it's not conceived of as sex, it's just physical affection."

But homosexuality has been used as a means of propaganda and has been shown as a western vice with associations tied to the US or Japan.