Portrait
Died
21 April 2000Pingtung County, Taiwan
StudentTaiwan

Yeh Yung-chih

Bullied for being “too feminine”, a 15-year-old schoolboy died after being found in a school toilet – the “rose boy” changed Taiwan’s schools.

Yeh Yung-chih attended Gao-Shu Junior High School in Pingtung County in southern Taiwan. He was slight, spoke in a high voice and liked to play make-believe; many considered him “too feminine”. For years classmates teased and harassed him for it, including in the toilets – once they pulled down his trousers. The school was told, but nothing changed. To avoid the others, he went to the toilet during lessons rather than in the breaks.

On 20 April 2000 he left a music lesson to go to the toilet. Shortly afterwards classmates found him on the floor of the boys’ toilet, bleeding from the head. He died in hospital early the next morning, aged 15.

The authorities first spoke of an accident or illness. His family and activists did not believe it. The case went through several courts. In 2006 a court concluded that he had slipped on the wet floor and sentenced the principal and two employees to short prison terms for negligence because the school had failed to repair a leaking water tank. What exactly happened in the toilet has never been fully established.

Activists called him the “rose boy”, after the Chinese title of the film “Ma vie en rose”. His death sparked a nationwide debate about how schools treat children who do not conform to gender roles. In 2004 Taiwan passed the Gender Equity Education Act, which obliges schools to respect children regardless of gender expression and sexual orientation. Since 2023, 20 April has been Gender Equity Education Day in Taiwan.

More in April

01AprBorn 194284th birthday

Samuel R. Delany

A Black gay writer who transformed science fiction – and wrote frankly about sex, race and New York’s Times Square.

01AprBorn 1895131st birthday

Alberta Hunter

A blues star of the 1920s, she spent two decades as a nurse before returning to the stage at 82.

02AprDied 200323rd anniversary of death

Terenci Moix

The flamboyant Catalan novelist mocked the morality of the Franco era – and was one of the first public figures in Spain to live openly as a gay man.

03AprBorn 1915111th birthday

Axel Axgil

With his partner Eigil he founded Denmark’s first gay organisation – and in 1989 the two became the first same-sex couple in the world to be legally recognised.

03AprBorn 1791235th birthday

Anne Lister

Her coded diaries preserve an unusually detailed account of love between women in nineteenth-century England.

03AprBorn 1911115th birthday

Stanisława Walasiewicz

An Olympic sprint champion whose intersex body became a tabloid sensation after she was killed in a robbery.

04AprBorn 195868th birthday

Cazuza

His songs combined desire and political anger, and his public disclosure of AIDS challenged silence around the epidemic in Brazil.

04AprDied 195373rd anniversary of death

Rachilde

She called herself a “man of letters” and wrote scandalous novels about reversed gender roles in fin-de-siècle Paris.

05AprBorn 197947th birthday

Nisha Ayub

Jailed in a men’s prison for wearing women’s clothes, she became Malaysia’s leading voice for trans rights.

05AprBorn 198244th birthday

Thomas Hitzlsperger

The former German international was the most prominent male footballer to come out as gay – in 2014, after his career.

05AprDied 199729th anniversary of death

Allen Ginsberg

The obscenity trial over “Howl” helped make his poetry a landmark in the struggle over free expression.

06AprBorn 193195th birthday

Ram Dass

The Harvard psychologist turned spiritual teacher wrote “Be Here Now” – and spoke late in life about loving men as well as women.

07AprBorn 1912114th birthday

Harry Hay

An organiser who helped give American gay men a collective political identity.

07AprBorn 1915111th birthday

Billie Holiday

Her phrasing transformed popular songs, while “Strange Fruit” made the violence of lynching impossible to ignore.

07AprBorn 1907119th birthday

Violette Leduc

Her frank account of love between two schoolgirls was censored in the 1950s – and her memoir “La Bâtarde” became a bestseller.

07AprBorn 1889137th birthday

Gabriela Mistral

A Chilean poet, teacher and diplomat whose intimate life was long hidden behind her public reputation.

08AprDied 195076th anniversary of death

Vaslav Nijinsky

The greatest male dancer of his age was Diaghilev’s lover and star – until his marriage, and then his mind, ended his career.

09AprBorn 199927th birthday

Lil Nas X

He came out while his song “Old Town Road” was number one – and then made pop’s most provocative queer music videos.

09AprDied 20206th anniversary of death

Phyllis Lyon

With Del Martin she founded America’s first lesbian organisation – and after 55 years together, they were the first couple to marry in San Francisco.

10AprDied 194185th anniversary of death

Dolly Wilde

Oscar Wilde’s niece inherited his wit – and was for fourteen years the partner of Natalie Clifford Barney in Paris.

11AprBorn 1914112th birthday

Norman McLaren

A pioneer of animation who painted directly onto film – and lived for fifty years with his partner Guy Glover.

12AprDied 197551st anniversary of death

Josephine Baker

The star of 1920s Paris was also a spy for the Resistance and a civil rights fighter – and, her biographers say, loved women as well as men.

13AprBorn 197650th birthday

Robert Biedroń

Poland’s first openly gay member of parliament and first openly gay mayor – in a country where queer people faced fierce hostility.

14AprBorn 1904122nd birthday

John Gielgud

The greatest Shakespearean voice of his generation was arrested in 1953 – and the audience gave him a standing ovation.

14AprDied 198640th anniversary of death

Simone de Beauvoir

“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman” – the author of “The Second Sex” also loved women, a side of her life that remains controversial.

15AprBorn 1452574th birthday

Leonardo da Vinci

The universal genius of the Renaissance was accused of sodomy at 24, never married and lived with young male companions.

15AprBorn 1894132nd birthday

Bessie Smith

The “Empress of the Blues” made Black women’s lives and desires central to some of the era’s most influential recordings.

15AprDied 199432nd anniversary of death

John Curry

He wanted to dance, so he turned figure skating into ballet on ice – and became Olympic champion and one of the first openly gay top athletes.

15AprDied 199036th anniversary of death

Greta Garbo

A Swedish film star whose guarded private life became almost as famous as her performances.

15AprDied 198640th anniversary of death

Jean Genet

A writer who turned criminality, exclusion and desire into an unsettling literary world.

15AprDied 200026th anniversary of death

Edward Gorey

An illustrator whose elegant drawings give the absurd and macabre a world of their own.

15AprDied 1925101st anniversary of death

John Singer Sargent

The most fashionable portrait painter of his age never married – and his private drawings of male nudes have only recently been widely shown.

15AprDied 198838th anniversary of death

Kenneth Williams

Britain’s favourite comic voice of the “Carry On” films kept his homosexuality a private torment, recorded only in his diaries.

16AprBorn 1919107th birthday

Merce Cunningham

He freed dance from music and story – and shared his life and work for fifty years with the composer John Cage.

16AprBorn 1892134th birthday

Dora Richter

New archival discoveries show that a pioneer of trans healthcare survived Nazi rule and lived into the 1960s.

16AprBorn 193987th birthday

Dusty Springfield

Her voice connected British pop with American soul, while her openness about attraction to women challenged the expectations surrounding a female star.

17AprBorn 1919107th birthday

Chavela Vargas

She transformed rancheras through spare, emotionally charged performances and an unmistakably independent public image.

18AprBorn 198145th birthday

Audrey Tang

A self-taught programmer, Tang brought open-source collaboration and public participation into Taiwan’s digital government.

18AprDied 20197th anniversary of death

Lyra McKee

A young journalist who wrote about the “ceasefire babies” of Northern Ireland – and about growing up gay. She was shot dead at 29.

19AprDied 198343rd anniversary of death

Jerzy Andrzejewski

A novelist of moral choices and desire, Jerzy Andrzejewski moved from Catholic writing and communist commitment to organised opposition.

19AprDied 1824202nd anniversary of death

Lord Byron

Romanticism’s most famous poet loved women and young men – and died fighting for Greek independence.

19AprDied 1689337th anniversary of death

Christina of Sweden

She relinquished Sweden’s crown, converted to Catholicism and built a new life as a patron of the arts in Rome.

20AprBorn 193789th birthday

George Takei

An actor and activist whose public work connects Japanese American history with LGBTQ equality.

21AprDied 194680th anniversary of death

John Maynard Keynes

The most influential economist of the 20th century had relationships with men for years – before he married a Russian ballerina.

22AprBorn 194680th birthday

John Waters

The “Pope of Trash” made the filthiest films in America with Divine – and then gave the world “Hairspray”.

23AprBorn 1859167th birthday

Margaret Todd

She studied medicine when women were barely allowed to, wrote novels under a man’s name, coined the word “isotope” – and lived with Sophia Jex-Blake.

24AprBorn 199234th birthday

Rafaela Silva

From the City of God favela to Olympic gold at home in Rio – a Black, lesbian judoka who answered racist abuse with victory.

25AprDied 201610th anniversary of death

Xulhaz Mannan

He founded Bangladesh’s first magazine for queer people – and was murdered for it in 2016, together with his friend Mahbub Rabbi Tonoy.

26AprBorn 1909117th birthday

Marianne Hoppe

One of the great German actresses of the 20th century was married to Gustaf Gründgens – and loved women, including Therese Giehse.

26AprBorn 1892134th birthday

Adrienne Monnier

Her bookshop on the rue de l’Odéon was the heart of literary Paris – and across the street lived and worked her partner, Sylvia Beach.

26AprBorn 1886140th birthday

Ma Rainey

The “Mother of the Blues” sang about loving women and wearing a collar and tie – in 1928.

26AprBorn 1889137th birthday

Ludwig Wittgenstein

One of the most important philosophers of the 20th century gave away his fortune – and loved a series of young men, as his coded diaries reveal.

26AprDied 196660th anniversary of death

Dora Richter

New archival discoveries show that a pioneer of trans healthcare survived Nazi rule and lived into the 1960s.

26AprDied 200323rd anniversary of death

Yun Hyon-seok

A young gay poet and activist whose death in 2003 led South Korea to stop classifying homosexuality as harmful to young people.

27AprDied 20251st anniversary of death

Jiggly Caliente

From “RuPaul’s Drag Race” to “Pose” and the judges’ table of “Drag Race Philippines”: a Filipina-American trans star who championed her community.

28AprDied 199234th anniversary of death

Francis Bacon

A painter whose distorted figures made desire, vulnerability and grief physically present.

28AprDied 200818th anniversary of death

Eudy Simelane

A South African footballer whose murder drew attention to the violence faced by lesbian women.

29AprBorn 1863163rd birthday

Constantine P. Cavafy

A clerk in Alexandria who became the greatest Greek poet of the 20th century – and wrote openly of desire between men.

29AprBorn 193690th birthday

Alejandra Pizarnik

Her brief, intense poems made silence, desire and the limits of language central to Argentine poetry.

29AprDied 193393rd anniversary of death

Constantine P. Cavafy

A clerk in Alexandria who became the greatest Greek poet of the 20th century – and wrote openly of desire between men.

29AprDied 195175th anniversary of death

Ludwig Wittgenstein

One of the most important philosophers of the 20th century gave away his fortune – and loved a series of young men, as his coded diaries reveal.

30AprBorn 1877149th birthday

Alice B. Toklas

She shared Gertrude Stein’s life in Paris for almost four decades, then found her own readers with a cookbook.

30AprDied 193690th anniversary of death

A. E. Housman

The author of “A Shropshire Lad” combined exacting Latin scholarship with poems about love and loss. His love for Moses Jackson remained largely private.