Korea's Forbidden Secret: Same-Sex Relationships in the Joseon Court

In fourteen thirty-six, King Sejong the Great ordered his royal secretaries to leave one thing out of an official decree: the real reason his daughter-in-law was being expelled from the palace. Crown Princess Soon-bin Bong had been caught in a relationship with an enslaved palace maid named So-sang — and the king commanded that the public record list only jealousy, childlessness, and love songs instead. But Joseon's court historians wrote down the truth anyway, into a record no living king was ever allowed to read. Six hundred years later, that testimony still survives. This is the documented story of same-sex relationships inside the Joseon court — the deposed princess, the enslaved women caught in the scandal, the daeshik bonds among hundreds of palace women forbidden to marry, and the punishments a "golden age" king admitted had failed to stop them. It's also the story of how one of history's most candid archives, the Joseon Veritable Records, preserved a secret its own ruler tried to erase. A true account of power, secrecy, love, and the historians who refused to lie. Chapters cover: Bong's selection and the shadow of the deposed first princess Hwee-bin Kim; her isolation at the height of Sejong's court; the discovery and interrogation; the deliberately sanitized decree; and what survived afterward. #JoseonDynasty #KoreanHistory #LGBTHistory #Sejong #HiddenHistory #DynastyWars #KoreaUncovered #QueerHistory Sources used: Joseon Wangjo Sillok (Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty), Sejong Sillok — sillok.history.go.kr / esillok.history.go.kr "Deposed Crown Princess Bong" — Wikipedia "Munjong of Joseon" and "Deposed Crown Princess Gim" — Wikipedia L.J. Lee, "Sossang and Danji: 15th century Korean maidservants in love" (guest blog) — Alpennia.com L.J. Lee, "Records of homosexuality in premodern Korea" — ljwrites.blog "Life as a Joseon Queen, Part 2.5" and "Royal Ladies of Joseon Dynasty" — The Talking Cupboard "Women of Joseon" — The Korea Times Aleksandra Müller, International Journal of Korean Humanities and Social Sciences, vol. 8 (2022) Todd A. Henry, ed., Queer Korea (Duke University Press, 2020) "LGBTQ history in South Korea" — Wikipedia Encyclopedia of Korean Culture (encykorea.aks.ac.kr) — gungnyeo, namsadang entries