K-Pop Star Holland Is Forging a Path as an Openly Gay Idol

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In August, Korean singer Holland made several emotional, last-minute appearances at KCON L.A., a convention celebrating Korean music and culture. Everywhere he went, audiences filled with young people awaited him with urgency in their eyes. As one of only a handful of openly gay public figures in Korea, Holland is more than a musician. To his fans, Holland is hope, and, at KCON, his radiant positivity drew people to him like a beacon. Teenagers, shaking with emotion, approached him, and he opened his arms to embrace them, wipe away their tears, and offer guidance for dealing with unsupportive parents. At one meet-and-greet, where rainbow flags dotted the crowd, he demurely covered his face as 300 people chanted his name.

In South Korea, where same-sex unions are not legally recognized and sex between men is sometimes criminalized, Holland has chosen to live freely as one of the first openly gay K-pop idols. In doing so, he's creating a vital, magical world for others to also embrace their sexuality and find themselves in his music.

For the 23-year-old, making music was always “more about expressing identity” than about being a pop star, he says, but the unexpected success of his 2018 debut single “Neverland” made him one of South Korea’s most prominent LGBTQ+ figures practically overnight. Now, more than a year and a half later, he’s still grappling with what his bravery has come to mean to LGBTQ+ youth around the world.

“I’m still not used to thinking of myself as a role model for the LGBTQ+ community, and I’m a bit shy when asked what advice I’d give to teens struggling with their sexual identity,” Holland tells Teen Vogue through a translator. It’s 9 a.m. in a hotel suite 57 stories above downtown Los Angeles, and Holland is dressed in a chic black tunic with an asymmetrical neckline and matching trousers. A single silver earring dangles from his left lobe as he takes a seat on the couch, crossing his legs and draping his wrist elegantly over his knees. On social media, Holland sprinkles his posts with “bb,” “qt,” “lover,” and other adoring pet names for his fans. In person, he is just as affectionate. His demeanor is warm and bright, and he has an endearing way of communicating by physical touch, frequently offering up delicate hugs and holding hands while talking closely, even with strangers.

“Every person comes from a different environment and has their own problems,” he says, with his hand laying gently over his heart. “I don’t want to assume that I know what they’re going through. But I want my fans to love themselves and take care of themselves. That’s my first priority. I want them to know: there’s nothing wrong with you, never lose who you are, and focus on finding what makes you happy.”

Holland acknowledges that meeting fans face-to-face like he did at KCON is not yet possible in South Korea, where “homosexuality is a very sensitive topic and the atmosphere is pretty much ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’” he explains. The country’s president, Moon Jae-in, has oscillated between hesitant support and outright opposition of LGBTQ+ rights, and last year more than 200,000 people signed a petition to cancel Seoul’s gay pride parade.

Despite this hostility, South Korea’s LGBTQ+ community is growing. Holland says that gay pride celebrations are getting bigger “little by little” each year, and Seoul’s local LGBTQ+ community is known to gather at the gay bars in the city’s Itaewon neighborhood. Within the music industry, a small handful of proud LGBTQ+ Korean musicians, like R&B singer MRSHLL and trans entertainer Harisu, preceded Holland’s debut as an idol. In August, a former K-pop reality show contestant made headlines when she posted a photo with her girlfriend on Instagram.

Holland first realized he was gay in middle school, and there weren’t any LGBTQ+ public figures in South Korea that he could look up to. As his male classmates expressed interest in female artists, Holland was bullied for pining after K-pop boy group SHINee. “I didn’t have anyone to get advice from,” he recalls, so he turned to the web to research LGBTQ+ culture in other parts of the world, and he was heartened by acts of support from Western artists. He specifically recalls a 2012 news story about Maroon 5’s Adam Levine refusing to patronize a restaurant after finding out that the owner supported outlawing gay marriage in the state of California. “Stories like that influenced me and gave me courage,” he says of his younger self.

Things didn’t get easier when Holland decided to pursue music as a young adult. As is customary in K-pop, he auditioned to join an entertainment company where he could train to become an idol. When no agency was willing to support his mission to create music while also being open about his sexuality, Holland decided he would go at it alone. He worked two part-time jobs to fund the creation of "Neverland,” a pop song with lyrics that express a longing for the mythical world of J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, where people live free from society’s social expectations.

This choice was extremely bold; in addition to its high financial costs, his musical debut also served as his official coming out. “I risked losing my family members,” he admits. Even so, he believed in the song’s greater mission. “It was not really a project I expected people to love,” he says of the single. “It was more about showing the people who gave me a hard time for being gay that I am supported and that I support others going through the same thing, even if it was just one or two people.” When it came time to choose a stage name, Holland, whose given name is Go Tae-seob, chose to honor The Netherlands, which was the first country to legalize same-sex marriage in 2001.

"I want my fans to love themselves and take care of themselves. That’s my first priority. I want them to know: there’s nothing wrong with you, never lose who you are, and focus on finding what makes you happy."

The music video for “Neverland,” which featured Holland and a male love interest walking barefoot on a beach, cuddling, and kissing, was released on January 21, 2018. The video received a 19+ rating, because of the kissing, in South Korea, limiting its viewership there, but gained more than 700,000 views in 24 hours on YouTube. Overnight, the song Holland had hoped would reach one or two people reached hundreds of thousands around the world. This global fanbase soon began to call itself “Harling,” a portmanteau of “Holland” and “Darling,” the family name of the characters from Peter Pan.

Since “Neverland,” it seems as though the world has become Holland’s oyster.

He released a self-titled mini-album in March, which Harling helped fund, raising more than $100,000 in 45 days (two times the original goal). In June, he was a fixture at Paris Fashion Week, where he partied at a Christian Louboutin bash, sat front row at the AMI Alexandre Mattiussi show, and befriended Sébastien Meunier, the artistic director of Belgian fashion house Ann Demeulemeester. Holland can barely contain his excitement as he divulges to Teen Vogue that Meunier kindly offered to provide stage outfits for his upcoming tour with MyMusicTaste, a platform that lets fans vote for the cities they want an artist to visit. He beams as he arches his right eyebrow and asks rhetorically, “So exciting, yeah?”

Holland’s future is exciting. But even as he is embraced internationally, his music continues to explore the tension of being openly gay in a conservative country, as exemplified by a set of singles he released late last year, titled “I’m So Afraid” and “I’m Not Afraid.” When asked about his hopes for LGBTQ+ rights in South Korea, Holland notes that, for him, “It was very meaningful to come out and have a voice in the community.” Inspired by this experience, he hopes people can openly discuss the topic of sexuality “regardless of what their opinion is. That way, Koreans can establish what their beliefs are on the matter,” instead of avoiding it altogether. Holland says his personal dream is to be able to publicly hold hands with his boyfriend, in South Korea, at Christmas.

This simple wish underscores Holland’s courage in being himself and advocating for equality. In doing so, he faced danger, loss, and failure, so why did he take the risk? “I did it because I wanted to show the world who I am and prove that I can be loved, that I am worth being loved by other people, regardless of my sexual orientation. I did it because I didn’t want to feel defeated by the people that gave me and my community a hard time,” he says with conviction. “I did it because it was worth it.”

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Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue