The Philippines in 1996-1997, China in 2000, Vietnam in 2009, Japan in 2013 and 2025, South Korea in 2014 and 2024, Taiwan in 2017 (the starting point of Trip By Trip), Singapore in 2018, Hong Kong and Macau in 2023, Bangkok in Thailand and Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia in early 2026. I like travelling to East Asia. I’m pondering a Republic of China (ROC) trip for the later this year. Current affairs make me think I shouldn’t wait too much to revisit Formosa.
Taiwan’s interior minister has sought to reassure the country’s LGBTQIA+ community ahead of its annual Pride parade, as a controversial police raid on Taipei gay cruising bar Commander D. continues to reverberate through politics.
Interior Minister Liu Shyh-fang said on 6 October 2026 that Taiwan is a diverse society in which people of all sexual orientations should be respected. She also said the country’s largest Pride event would be handled under Taiwan’s Assembly and Parade Act, following questions about whether the police operation could affect the atmosphere around the 31 October parade.
Her comments come as the fallout from the 3 October raid expands beyond the Taipei police department. Six officers have now been disciplined over inappropriate conduct during the operation, while Mayor Chiang Wan-an has apologised.
LGBTQIA+ organisations have staged protests and demanded changes to the way police deal with sexual minorities.
The raid itself, however, remains a separate question from the conduct of officers during it. Police maintain that the operation was lawful and carried out under a court-issued search warrant following complaints about suspected violations of public-decency rules. The Wanhua Precinct says it had received 13 complaints about Commander D. this year.
From a council question to a police raid
The origins of the operation reach back to September, when Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei city councillor Hung Chien-yi raised concerns in the city council after receiving complaints that minors might have entered a bar in Ximending.
According to the timeline circulated in the aftermath of the raid, Mayor Chiang Wan-an responded by asking police to investigate immediately. Hung has since stressed that he did not specifically identify the venue as a gay bar during his questioning. He said his concern was that minors might have entered an inappropriate establishment and that he wanted the city government to establish what had happened.
That distinction has become politically important. It means there is evidence of a political request for an investigation, but it does not establish that Hung asked police to raid Commander D., nor that the subsequent operation was directed at the queer community.
Police say their investigation ultimately led to a court-approved search warrant. On 3 October, officers from Wanhua Precinct entered Commander D., a BDSM-themed gay bar in Ximending. They reported finding naked people and used condoms and took 51 people to the police station for questioning. The venue’s person in charge was referred to prosecutors on suspicion of public indecency.
The police department has stressed that the Commander D. operation was part of a wider series of inspections. It says Wanhua Precinct conducted searches at 16 businesses that night and that none was added at the last minute or specifically selected because it served LGBTQ+ customers. The Commander D. raid was nevertheless one of three operations involving gay bars in the Ximen area that evening.
The conduct of officers becomes the bigger controversy
What happened inside Commander D has generated a second controversy, one that police have now acknowledged.
Recordings and video from the raid circulated online, including an audio recording in which an officer made a derogatory remark concerning a disabled person and sex. Other footage prompted accusations that officers behaved in a humiliating or unnecessarily aggressive manner towards people at the venue.
Police initially faced criticism for their handling of the incident, but after reviewing body-camera material they acknowledged inappropriate remarks by officers. Four officers received two reprimands each. The lead investigator received a demerit for failing to stop the comments, while Wanhua Precinct chief Chen Yung-hua was disciplined for inadequate supervision. In total, six officers were sanctioned.
Chiang subsequently apologised and called for a thorough review of the operation, stronger police discipline and greater awareness of discrimination. He has stressed that Taipei is a diverse and inclusive city and that people must be treated equally regardless of age, gender, sexual orientation or identity.
The apology has not ended the controversy. LGBTQIA+ groups have argued that the incident reflects deeper problems in the way police exercise their powers against marginalised communities. Hundreds of people joined a protest in Ximending on 4 October, while LGBTQIA+ organisations issued a joint statement and presented five demands, including a city-government apology and mechanisms for dealing with discrimination and enforcement complaints.
The Pride question
That controversy has now reached the national government because Taiwan’s annual Pride parade is only weeks away.
Asked whether people participating in Pride could face similar treatment, particularly if they removed their shirts during the event, Interior Minister Liu said the parade would be governed by the Assembly and Parade Act.
Liu also said that police forces should follow the Code of Criminal Procedure and that any deficiencies in police briefings should be corrected. More broadly, she stressed that respect for different sexual orientations should be a guiding principle in a diverse society.
Taiwan Pride is scheduled for 31 October. Taiwan became the first jurisdiction in Asia to legalise same-sex marriage in 2019, and Taipei’s Pride parade has become one of the region’s largest LGBTQ+ events. The Commander D. raid has therefore raised concerns about the contrast between Taiwan’s international reputation for LGBTQ+ rights and the treatment of queer people during the police operation.
An election backdrop
The timing has also given the controversy an unmistakable political dimension.
Chiang Wan-an, a member of the opposition Kuomintang (KMT), is seeking re-election as Taipei mayor in November. He is facing DPP candidate Shen Po-yang, and the contest is already closely watched as a potential indicator of Taiwan’s wider political balance.
Historically, the Taipei mayoralty has been an important springboard for national political careers: former Taipei mayors Lee Teng-hui, Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-jeou all went on to become president.
The Commander D? controversy erupted as the mayoral campaign was heating up. On 3 October, Chiang was simultaneously attacking Shen over a past article and his position on drug policy. The dispute has become another line of attack between the KMT and DPP, with Chiang arguing for a hard line on drugs and questioning Shen’s approach to harm reduction.
Shen, meanwhile, has argued that while suspected illegality should be investigated, the public has a right to know the legal basis and limits of police action and how authorities protect people’s dignity while exercising their powers. He has also warned that Taipei’s commitment to diversity should not be something displayed only during Pride.
The proximity of the political disputes to the raid is striking, but it is important not to turn chronology into causation. There is currently no evidence establishing that the Commander D operation was politically ordered, that Chiang personally ordered the raid, or that the raid was intended as an attack on the LGBTQIA+ community. Police say they acted on complaints, conducted an investigation and obtained a judicial search warrant. They also say the operation formed part of wider inspections.
What is established is that Chiang had called for an investigation after the September council controversy, that police subsequently investigated Commander D, and that the raid took place during an increasingly heated mayoral campaign. Whether those developments are politically connected beyond that remains unproven.
A controversy now bigger than Commander D.
For the Taipei government, the immediate problem is no longer simply whether police had legal grounds to enter Commander D. That question will ultimately depend on the evidence and the applicable public-decency laws.
The more immediate political issue is whether lawful enforcement was accompanied by discriminatory or degrading treatment — and whether Taiwan’s institutions can demonstrate that LGBTQIA+ people will receive the same protection and dignity as anyone else when police exercise their powers.
The police disciplinary measures and Chiang’s apology represent an acknowledgement that something went wrong in the conduct of the operation. But the continuing questions over why Commander D was investigated, how the operation was carried out, and how police treat LGBTQIA+ venues have ensured that the raid will remain an issue well beyond the bar itself.
With Taiwan Pride approaching on 31 October, the government is now under pressure to show that its commitment to LGBTQIA+ rights applies not only to the country’s biggest rainbow celebration, but also to what happens when queer people encounter the state in very different circumstances.
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