We welcome eveyone here!! Taiwan Tongzhi Hotline Association was founded in 1998 and is now the oldest and the largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ+) organization in Taiwan. Hotline is dedicated to achieve equality and provide resources for the LGBTQ+ community through creating public dialogue and gender inclusive sexuality education. Hotline serves more than 50,000 LGBTQ+ people and non-LGBTQ+ people each year in its diverse programs focused on eight major divisions: gender and sexuality education, support for parents of LGBTQ+ children, hotline services, care for LGBTQ+ elders, HIV/AIDS prevention, intimate partner violence, transgender issues, and community initiatives.
【History】
In March of 1998, after numerous news reports of LGBT teen suicides in Taiwan, a group of deeply shocked and saddened activists came together to form a permanent, legally registered non-profit organization working specifically on LGBT issues. The goal of this organization was to provide a space for acceptance and empathy in the community.
Soon after, four different alliances including the Gay Counselors Association, Queer & Class, LGBT Civil Rights Alliance, and the Gay Teachers’ Alliance, came together to establish an organization, Tongzhi Hotline, in the Gongguan neighborhood of Taipei on June 28th 1998. Hotline has continually provided service to the LGBT community in Taiwan until the present.
On June 9th 2000, the organization registered with the Ministry of the Interior and officially hired its first full-time employee, becoming the first national LGBT organization in Taiwan. The organization’s complete name became “Taiwan Tongzhi Hotline Association.”
In October of 2002, the increasing size of the organization caused Hotline to relocate to the Guting neighborhood of Taipei, where it continued to provide a diverse array of services to the LGBT community. It also incorporated smaller working groups to engage with particular issues facing the LGBT community. These issues include community development, human rights advocacy, gender and sexuality education, HIV/AIDS prevention, LGBT family relationships, lesbian intimacy, LGBT elders, and LGBT intimate violence prevention. As the organization grew in size and strength, Hotline established a service branch in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, with the hope of uniting various local resources to provide an LGBT service center in the south. This move symbolized the rooting of the LGBT movement in southern Taiwan, and in 2009 the service center officially became the Taiwan Tongzhi Hotline Association Southern Office.
At present, the organization has seven full-time employees, and one part-time employee, each in charge of a different focus area. These employees lead 250 volunteers in the organization’s various initiatives and social service programs that strive to eliminate prejudice and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. These programs utilize peer counseling, online support services, and community centers to engage with issues of sexuality and gender from a number of different angles.
【Mission and Vision】
LGBT Peer Mentoring
The goal of this program is to encourage LGBT people to share their life stories. Our trained staff members work to create a safe environment where diverse experiences are valued, and participants can gain a better understanding of others’ thoughts and feelings, and support one another in facing difficulties. In this process of learning about and helping others, we also learn about and help ourselves.
LGBT Support Network
Another important function of Hotline is to provide diverse information about LGBT life and to foster community solidarity and empowerment through knowledge. Hotline encourages participants to exchange life experiences, to help others along in their own lives, and to reach out to LGBT individuals and communities that have fewer resources.
LGBT Community Center
In addition to hosting its own events and offices, Hotline serves as a community center for LGBT individuals and allies, and provides a space where other LGBT organizations and clubs can meet. This shared space makes LGBT services and information more widely accessible, and encourages coalition building among groups and co-operation on larger projects.
LGBT Rights Education
Taiwan Tongzhi Hotline Association has gathered many stories about the experiences of LGBT individuals in Taiwan. We draw on these stories to spread the word about our cause and carry on the conversation about LGBT rights in our society. Our aim is to educate members of society about LGBT issues so as to eliminate discrimination, misconceptions, and bias, and to provide a space for conversations about respecting and valuing diversity and working toward equality for all.