For more than a decade, Wayne Lin, a 42-year-old Taiwanese software engineer living in Taipei, had stayed in the closet at work. It was not until this year that Lin began feeling more comfortable talking about his sexuality with his colleagues.

“I was worried that my sexual orientation may somehow reflect negatively on or interfere with work,” said Lin, who works as a manager at one of Taiwan’s largest telcos, “but I’m now more confident about where I’m at with my career.”

Last Saturday (October 27), around 137,000 people took to the streets of Taipei, waving rainbow flags to the beat of loud music, at the city’s annual Gay Pride parade—the biggest pride celebration in Asia. In 2017, some 110,000 people participated, according to organizers.

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