K-Pop Fans Praise Weverse Magazine For Its LGBT+ Recognition

ARMYs are praising Weverse Magazine for its LGBT+ recognition.

Recently, Weverse Magazine published an article by Oh Minji titled “Talking K-pop with LGBTQ+ fans Loving, and loved by, K-pop.”

LGBTQIA+ ARMYs were pleasantly surprised to see that Weverse Magazine even had published an article focused on the LGBT+ community, considering that South Korea is still pretty conservative. They expressed gratitude to Weverse for writing an article both recognizing and respecting them.

Just this year, openly gay K-Pop idol HOLLAND suffered a homophobic attack. So, it’s especially admirable that a publication as high profile as Weverse Magazine as it’s owned by HYBE, one of the biggest music entertainment companies, home to some of the most popular music acts, BTS, SEVENTEEN, TXT, and many more.

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A post shared by HOLLAND (@holland_vvv)

Not only that, but it didn’t surface level or generalize the LGBT+ community. It recognized many community members, including often overlooked orientations and identities such as asexual and genderqueer.

Reply with one word that represents everything BTS has done for you. It can be anything.” The comments left on this tweet posted by one LGBTQ+ BTS fan account perfectly illustrates what BTS means to LGBTQ+ ARMY. The LGBTQ+ in LGBTQ+ ARMY refers to people who fall under the social minority umbrella of sexual orientations and gender identities. While at once identifying as ARMY, or fans of BTS, they also belong to communities of different sexual orientation (homosexual, pansexual, asexual, etc.), gender identity (transgender, cisgender, genderqueer, etc.) and more. Danny, an LGBTQ+ ARMY who identifies as a genderfluid biromantic asexual person, describes BTS as ‘one of the main reasons as to why I was able to find things to love about myself, but they’re also one of the reasons why I was able to find things to love about everything else as well. Living, dreaming, resting, nature, music, art, down to every little thing you could think of.’

— Weverse Magazine

IM IN A WEVERSE MAGAZINE ARTICLE pic.twitter.com/SMWvVuwarc

— danny⁷🐟 (@jooniekore_) November 8, 2022

As the article is focused on queer K-Pop fans, it includes conversations with individuals of the LGBT+ community, including familiar faces such as YouTuber José. They spoke about how K-Pop, especially artists such as BTS, have helped them live freely and love themselves.

YouTuber Jose says that BTS gave him a reason to break from his past, a time when he had been ‘hiding for a lot of years of my life and being bullied in school for being gay,’ which ‘made me build a hard shell around me.’ Once he fell in love with BTS’s music, message and the group itself, he saw himself breaking away from ‘the person I was becoming’ through unwanted experiences, instead ‘opening up’ about his true self more and learning to “crack that shell little by little” and ‘love myself a bit more each day.’ To him, being ARMY is about knowing to ‘accept people for who they are no matter what their background is, who they want to love or how they identify,’ which led him to come out to his viewers and share parts of his life as a gay person in solidarity with other ARMY.

— Weverse Magazine

I had the pleasure of speaking with weverse magazine about my experience being gay and ARMY. Please read and thank you weverse for the opportunity! 💜🏳️‍🌈 https://t.co/CJemX0LxFG

— José/JK Mixtape⁷ (@TheJose8A) November 8, 2022

Hi gay! 💜 https://t.co/xny0o35yob pic.twitter.com/lWvDdwNhYm

— José/JK Mixtape⁷ (@TheJose8A) November 1, 2022

Many of the HYBE groups, such as BTS, SEVENTEEN, and TXT, have all spoken out in the past as allies of the LGBTQIA+ community. Recently, BTS’s Jimin even released his solo photo-folio, “Me, Myself, & Jimin” ID: Chaos, which many even deemed “queer-coded.”