South Korea's Education Ministry Removes LGBTQ References from Anti-Hate Guidebook

The South Korean Ministry of Education has suspended the release of a new official guidebook aimed at preventing discrimination and hate speech in schools following a scandal over the removal of all references to LGBTQ students. According to the Kyunghyang Shinmun newspaper , the ministry excluded terms such as “sexual orientation,” “gender identity,” “outing,” and “coming out,” citing fears of backlash and complaints from conservative organizations and parents.

The document was originally developed in collaboration with the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education in response to incidents of hate speech in schools. The draft contained specific recommendations on protection against homophobia, including a ban on forced disclosure of identity (outing). However, in the Ministry of Education’s final draft, all these points were deleted. Six out of seven experts involved in reviewing the document protested and demanded the recommendations be reinstated, stating that excluding a vulnerable group completely undermines the guidebook’s purpose. After officials refused, the experts resigned from the review board.

The ministry’s actions drew harsh criticism from more than 130 human rights and civil society organizations, which demanded a transparent investigation, official apologies, and the restoration of the deleted chapters. Human rights advocates point to April 2026 statistics from the National Human Rights Commission, which show that 70% of LGBTQ teenagers in the country suffer from depression, and 83.4% consider the school environment hostile. Amid the public outcry, the ministry has delayed the distribution of the booklet to regional education offices for “additional review.”