What does longing for your child look like? What happens when they resurface in front of you, when that rift was once an immeasurable open sea — a searing pain that silently hollowed you out for decades? For the child wrenched away by circumstance and thrown into the purgatory of always feeling in-between: in between home, in between being a whole person, in between who you could have been and who you are now — what does it mean to become and belong?

In filmmaker Jota Mun’s documentary “Between Goodbyes”, the fragmented yearning for home, family and identity are woven together into a tremendous and at times dream-like contemplation of the self, focused on various family members set adrift by a deceitful international adoption machine. 

The story is focused on Mieke Murkes, a queer Korean adoptee who grew up in the rural village of Vaassen in the Netherlands. Shortly after her birth in 1982, she was raised by Willy, a devout evangelical Christian woman. But the story does not begin with Mieke in Vaassen. It begins with Okgyun, her original mother, walking through an ephemeral meadow as she makes her way to a shoreline. This is our first point of loss. 

It is important to understand how the stories of Okgyun and Mieke exist. In “Between Goodbyes”, we see a frustrating glimpse into the cultural and political forces that created this separation. Since 1955, 200,000 children have been adopted from South Korea, and just three years ago, several of these adoptees found that their documents had been falsified. Murkes would sift through her own papers in “Between Goodbyes”, noting their dull and rote descriptions of her physical appearance and health. “The paperwork is as if you’re buying a new car,” Murkes says. 

Written nearby: “Both parents are unknown,” a falsehood that leaves the family breathless. It is a gut punch. 

This March, a South Korean governmental agency admitted that it had violated the rights of adoptees, but an investigation that began in 2022 at the behest of over 350 Korean adoptees has been halted. Whether or not retribution can ever be paid is up in the air, but the reeling grief and complicated self-reckoning many of these adoptees and their families face are rendered and expressed with deep tenderness in Mun’s documentary. “I did not know how to fit the Korean part of me in there,” Murkes said. 

When Okgyun was pregnant with Mieke, she was also raising three other daughters: Mijin, Mikyung and Taekyung. The population was booming, and mothers like herself were being shamed for continuing to have children. Considering abortion, Okgyun recounts a midwife who convinced her not to go through with it — that if the child were a boy, she should keep him. If it turned out to be a girl, she could give her away to live “a good life” in the U.S. “Men are always positioned above women,” Okgyun said. “I always hated that.” 

After Mieke was born, Okgyun’s mother-in-law told her to give her away. “She was gone before I saw her face,” Okgyun said. “I let her go.” Her guilt tightens her throat, trembles in her voice. “I dreamed of Mieke a lot. I can’t tell you how many times,” Okgyun said. “Dreaming and forgetting, dreaming, and forgetting. The thought that kept me going is that one day I can find Mieke.” 

What ensued was a several years-long search. Kwangho, Mieke’s original father, pleaded with an adoption agency for any leads about Mieke. They denied him several times and his desperation only grew. “I had to find her to be at peace before I die,” he said. 

Meanwhile, Mieke’s own grief and confusion were compounding. When she was beginning to discover her queerness, she was deeply ingrained in local religious spaces. What made her feel free, the church treated as an aberration — as behavior that resulted from loss. 

When she would eventually meet her original family, they, too, had trouble processing her queer identity and masculine presentation. To them, queerness was “acquired” from being raised in a foreign land. With time, they grew to embrace Mieke and her partner, Marit, even as misunderstandings arose. Of this, Mieke’s conflictedness is explored. Gay rights are more advanced and accepted in the Netherlands than in South Korea, but this does not mean contending with her queerness would have been easy with her adoptive mother, Willy. “It probably would have disappointed her a lot,” Mieke tearfully revealed.

Mieke’s stepping in between knowing and unknowing is reminiscent of Okgyun’s dreaming and forgetting — their grief and confusion move within them, replicating themselves over and over again. “Between Goodbyes” dives deeply into this in order to offer a portrait of healing: of its complications and the necessity of community support to achieve this. 

Mun discusses the film with the Los Angeles Blade, diving into how reunification between adoptees and original family members is, in many ways, made nearly impossible by factors like language and cultural barriers enforced and held tightly in place by the international adoption system. This film illustrates a break in this narrative and the mighty efforts behind it all.

A broadcast version of “Between Goodbyes” is now available to stream on PBS. See below for more information.

Can you tell me about the inception of making “Between Goodbyes”? Have you always wanted to tell a story about international Korean adoption from a queer perspective?

As a queer Korean adoptee myself, [there are] so many intersections that I haven’t quite seen on screen before. So I was always really excited about making something about my community. And then I’d say, in 2017, is around when I started getting closer to zeroing in on the idea. I think part of it was through befriending Mieke and hearing her parents’ story. Hearing about their efforts really blew my mind. 

So much of the standard narrative is that adoptees initiate the search. So even before meeting [Okgyun and Kwangho], it just felt like it spoke so loudly of not only their character, but a piece of the puzzle that I had never considered — that they could be longing for us. And I think as an adoptee, you always wonder what [your original parents] would think. So it’s very noticeable that we almost don’t ever hear from them directly. Even in narrative stories of adoption, they’re usually deleted, or they’re written in a really flat way that feels like they’re serving the plot. I’ve never seen a depiction of birth mothers in particular who are questioning their own circumstances or feel angry about it.

There’s a lot of nuance given to all of the different people that we see in the story. The pain is layered and deep, and we don’t just view it from one perspective. What was it like having to portray this hurt, when many adoption stories typically focus solely on the adoptee’s emotional and personal journey?

It’s so unique through each lens, even though it’s the same pain. Like her sisters — of course, it’s going to affect them. Even if she never said anything, they must have felt it. It just ripples out to everyone and keeps expanding. 

Originally, it was focused on Mieke, because that’s who I had the most access to, and she’s the closest to me in terms of general identity markers. So in my mind, I felt more confident that I could tell her story in a nuanced way. But what about Okgyun? I was hitting a similar barrier of communication that Mieke had hit. That’s part of why our main producer, Zoe Sua Cho, was so essential in conveying more about Okygun and the original family’s side of the story. 

When I was in the early stages of developing the film, there was a quote that I felt was really inspirational: “In our hurting, we did not realize that we were stolen from each other” (by SN Désirée Cha from Outsiders Within Writing on Transracial Adoption.) The same quote came back to me in the edit and helped us find a narrative structure that went beyond just one person’s perspective. 

What if the main character is the collective trauma, a singular event that causes the family to splinter and suffer across decades? I wanted to explore how tempting it is in these moments of righteous anger at systemic problems to end up fighting with each other. I feel like they both had to mourn something that was so much bigger than any one family. Mieke’s adoption affected so many people that I almost wanted that to be the main character. How do we not get lost in that pain and still try to come back together? It’s too much to carry alone. 

So the main character is not necessarily one person, but the issue that you’re trying to tackle throughout the story. It also makes me think about how the documentary itself, or the making of it, also participates in this community healing that I feel like was the focus of “Between Goodbyes”.

I hope it’s an important layer. Suffice to say I think I always deflect to name a singular main character. I wanted to show everyone’s point of view while of course highlighting especially Okgyun and Mieke. 

What else can you share about your approach to filmmaking?

You know, I was on this wonderful panel earlier this year, hosted by A-DOC, and I kind of surprised myself in preparing for it. I realized, actually, I have a lot of strong beliefs on filmmaking ethics that I hope come through in the film. For example, I reject the genius artist myth. The fantasy that if an artist is talented enough, they get permission to treat everyone around them terribly. That exploitation and squeezing things out of people is the best way to make great art. 

Instead, I want to believe that the sensitivity, the care, and emotional work I poured in is going to come shining through in the film. And I do think that’s part of why we witnessed so many intensely vulnerable moments that I couldn’t have predicted.

This emotional connection to the film is also, visually, represented in artistic and inventive ways. There are sequences interspersed throughout that feel dream-like and cinematic. Creatively, what was it like to structure and craft how you wanted those scenes to be, the weight that they carried, and why you wanted to represent them in that way?

Aw, thanks for saying so! I was clear from the beginning that I wanted certain moments in the film to look as cinematic and epically life-changing as they feel in real life. Because visually, sometimes these moments of heartbreak can look rather dull. The deep heartbreak of a farewell at the airport. What does it look like? It looks like two people hugging in a very normal-looking terminal. But that’s not what it feels like. It feels larger than life. So to me, every single one of the art [scenes] has a very literal symbolism in my mind.

I really enjoy the complexity given to the family, both through the artistic symbolism and through the different angles we get to view them in. When it comes to Mieke’s queer identity, there are varying levels of acceptance and also tension that co-exist. One of her sisters, Mikyung, skirts around terms and labels, instead saying Mieke is “like that,” and “I don’t know anyone like that.” There was this feeling that queerness is learned or acquired elsewhere — that Mieke “wouldn’t have turned out like that” if she had grown up with her original family in Korea.

I can’t be sure what they were implying but you know, I definitely didn’t want to fall into a common trope of seeing Western values as being so liberal and accepting and framing all other cultures as homophobic. I want to be clear that there is a queer community in Seoul. It’s not the same as Amsterdam, of course, but it does exist. 

That’s part of why it was important for me to include Mieke mentioned what she thinks her Dutch mom would have thought — just to clarify that homophobes are everywhere. There are plenty of them here in the West as well. Mieke’s Dutch parents were Evangelist Christians. So it’s not like everyone in the West is free to be a lesbian, you know?

Another moment that struck me in the film was a moment where we, as the audience, get to see you clearly. In this scene, we see you and Mieke on a rooftop, and you’re consoling her as she’s trying to prepare for a difficult conversation with her original mother, Okgyun. Did you have to find a balance in terms of being the director of this film and being Mieke’s friend?

It was really important to me to show friendship and how much that can help you along the journey. You think that for her to emotionally process things, it would have to be with her mom. But that rooftop conversation felt so transformative in itself. And then what ended up being the kind of mirror scene to that was Okgyun talking to Ruth [a fellow original mother]. She needed a buddy, too. How many times in life are we like: the opposing party doesn’t need to get it, but if my friend just could — that would give me so much relief and patience to enter the actual conversation with the person I’m upset with. 

Being so personally close to Mieke and her family meant that my film was about all people I loved and cared about. I think the documentary field comes from such a long history of an anthropological approach. It’s like, “I’ve helicoptered in, and I just met you, but I’m the expert artist.” I wish the ethos were the opposite; we need to care about everyone, from the participants to the crew. I don’t want the blood, sweat, and tears to come through on the screen. I hope that watching it makes people feel cloaked in tenderness and care.

I was so worried about everyone, probably too much. It’s such a weird thing to ask people to do, to be in a film, so I took that with a lot of responsibility. Be aware of the impact you’re having. I am having an effect on this family’s life. I almost wanted to be like: “Forget my art project.” This is about the rest of their lives as a family, and that’s more important. So it became a light on my path, trying to make decisions as best I could to have a positive impact on their relationship. 

It almost made me question my ethics in a different direction. “Am I intervening too much?” And that’s a strange thing: I have to admit I exist. I’m not a fly on the wall. And I think that’s why the conversation on the roof was really the most vulnerable for me, because I was showing myself. I’ve actually been here the whole time, cheering them on or trying to diffuse tension. I set out to make a film about how hard it is to stay in reunion, but now I’ve realized I’ll be heartbroken if their reunion doesn’t last. So in many ways the film was really just a vehicle for my attempt at keeping us all connected across so many distances, and that’s my own emotional journey or connection to their story.

Mun plans to release the full-length film in 2026, along with deleted scenes and additional footage. Up-to-date information can be found on the film’s Instagram page.

The European Union’s top court on Tuesday ruled member states must recognize same-sex marriages legally performed in other member states.

The EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg ruled in favor of a couple who challenged Poland’s refusal to recognize their German marriage.

ILGA-Europe notes Polish authorities refused “to transcribe into the civil register a certificate of same-sex marriage concluded” in Germany “between a Polish citizen and a Polish-German citizen … on the grounds that Polish law does not allow same-sex marriage.”

The couple who lives in Poland brought their case to Polish courts. The Polish Supreme Administrative Court referred it to the EU Court of Justice.  

“Today’s ruling of the Court of Justice of the EU is of key importance not only for the couple involved in the case, but also for the entire LGBT+ community in Poland,” said the Campaign Against Homophobia, a Polish LGBTQ and intersex rights group, in response to the decision. “It clearly states that refusing to transcribe a marriage concluded abroad is incompatible with EU law. Therefore, regardless of the absence of registered partnerships and marriage equality, Poland must ensure the possibility of effective transcription.” 

“With this judgment, the CJEU clearly states that the recognition of marriage status is key to enjoying EU citizens’ fundamental right to freedom of movement across the EU,” added ILGA-Europe Advocacy Director Katrin Hugendubel. “The EC now needs to ensure that this judgment is implemented quickly by the Polish state and across the EU.”

Sixteen EU countries — Ireland, Portugal, Spain, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Austria, Slovenia, Malta, Greece, Sweden, Finland, and Estonia — have extended full marriage rights to same-sex couples. Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and Slovakia are the EU countries with no legal recognition of same-sex couples.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Former Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar earlier this month said Europe is now at the forefront of the global LGBTQ and intersex rights movement.

“In many ways, Europe is the light,” he told the Washington Blade on Oct. 20 during an interview that took place near Harvard University. “It’s holding up against anti-LGBTQ policies.”

Varadkar, 46, in 2017 became Ireland’s first gay prime minister. 

He stepped down in 2020 after his center-right party, Fine Gael, lost 15 parliament seats in the general election, but he remained in the government. Varadkar, whose father was born in Mumbai, in 2022 once again became prime minister.

Varadkar in 2024 resigned and stepped down as Fine Gael’s leader.

The Harvard Kennedy School’s Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights on Oct. 16 announced Varadkar’s appointment as a senior fellow for its Global LGBTQI+ Human Rights Program for the 2025-2026 academic year. He — along with former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and former acting Treasury Secretary David Lebryk — are also Hauser Leaders at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership for this year’s fall semester. 

Varadkar during his fellowship will focus on LGBTQ and intersex rights within the EU. 

He sat down with the Blade on the same day he spoke at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. Varadkar on Tuesday participated in an event in Brussels that focused on LGBTQ and intersex rights in the EU.

New EU LGBTQ strategy ‘not wonderful, but at least it was done’

The European Commission on Oct. 8 released an LGBTQ and intersex rights strategy that focuses on three specific areas:

• Protecting LGBTIQ+ people (from hate-motivated harassment and violence, from discrimination, from conversion practices)
• Empowering LGBTIQ+ people through (equality bodies, rainbow families, promoting inclusion at workplace)
• Engaging society to advance LGBTIQ+ equality by (calling on all EU countries to adopt national strategies, improving the data collection and analysis, launching an ‘LGBTIQ+ Policy Forum’)

“It’s not wonderful, but at least it was done,” said Varadkar. “You won’t see that done in China, Russia, or even the United States, unfortunately.”

“Europe needs to hold the line, but also we want to focus on places where there is backsliding, like Bulgaria, like Slovakia,” he added, while also referring to the Czech Republic and Hungary.

Varadkar is among those who participated in this year’s Budapest Pride, even though Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government banned public LGBTQ events.  

“It wasn’t just a regular Pride protest, and in Eastern Europe Pride is still a protest, very much so …  they’re met by football hooligans, and police who aren’t necessarily there to support there to protect them,” Varadkar told the Blade. “This time, everyone joined in: students, unions, families, even more moderate political forces that might not always want to be associated with the LGBT cause, but it became about freedom of expression and became about free speech, and that’s why there was such a big turnout.”

Varadkar since he left office has also traveled to Bulgaria to support the country’s LGBTQ activists. Varadkar also spoke to the Blade about Russia and the Kremlin’s efforts to “influence and destabilize European societies.”

Russia in 2022 launched its war against Ukraine. 

“One of the ways they do that is through election interference and misinformation online, and they’ve identified this as an issue that can divide European societies,” said Varadkar, specifically referring to the Russian government’s opposition to LGBTQ rights and its overall human rights record. “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin has very much embraced the idea of traditional values and Russian Orthodox Christianity, and he’s using that as a wedge issue in Central and Eastern Europe.” 

“So as ever our fight is part of a bigger fight that’s linked to things like democracy, human rights, academic freedom, press freedom,” added Varadkar. “We’re on the front line in the same battle, in my view.”

He also said the EU needs to be pragmatic in how it responds to Orbán and other anti-LGBTQ leaders.

“[The EU] is in a bit of a dilemma as to how it acts, how it does withdraw funding sometimes from countries if they’re in breach of the standards around the rule of law,” said Varadkar.

The European Commission in 2021 threatened to withhold funding to local and regional governments in Poland that declared themselves “LGBT-free zones.” The European Commission in 2022 sued Hungary over a law that a press release notes “singles out and targets content that ‘promotes or portrays’ what it refers to as ‘divergence from self-identity corresponding to sex at birth, sex change or homosexuality’ for individuals under 18.”

“Some of the more nationalist and populist leaders in Central and Eastern Europe; there’s nothing they want more than a fight with Brussels, these Western European elites … trying to impose their ideology on our country,” Varadkar told the Blade. “So that’s why I think the European Union has to be smart as to how it acts.” 

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is among those who condemned the Budapest Pride ban. Varadkar told the Blade he “was disappointed there wasn’t more action” from Brussels “in relation to why Budapest Pride was being banned.”

Varadkar praises Sarah McBride 

Ireland is among the countries that have issued travel advisories for transgender and nonbinary people who are planning to visit the U.S. since the Trump-Vance administration took office.

President Donald Trump shortly after his inauguration issued a sweeping executive order — Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government — that, among other things, bans the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers. Trump in his inaugural speech also said the federal government will only recognize two genders: male and female.

Trump in February issued another executive order that bans trans women and girls from female sports teams. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in August announced it will ensure “male aliens seeking immigration benefits aren’t coming to the U.S. to participate in women’s sports.”

The promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights abroad was a cornerstone of the Biden-Harris administration’s overall foreign policy. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Jan. 24 directed State Department personnel to stop nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending for 90 days in response to an executive order that Trump signed after his inauguration. Rubio later issued a waiver that allowed PEPFAR and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue operating after bowing to pressure, but the Blade has reported PEPFAR-funded programs in Kenya and other African countries have been forced to suspend services and even shut down because of gaps in U.S. funding.

Rubio in March announced 83 percent of U.S. Agency for International Development contacts had been cancelled, and the State Department would administer the remaining programs. USAID officially shut down on July 1.

The global LGBTQ and intersex rights movement has lost more than an estimated $50 million in funding since the Trump-Vance administration took office.

“It has an impact, particularly on organizations in the Global South and in Central and Eastern Europe,” said Varadkar. 

Varadkar told the Blade he is working with the Global Development Project and other philanthropic organizations to “fill some of the gap” in funding.

He said the current situation “demonstrates why we should never be too dependent on any government or corporations.” Varadkar also spoke more broadly about the Trump-Vance administration and its policies.

“I’m a guest in this country. I’m not here to tell you what to do. The American people decide who the president is. I don’t, but I am genuinely disappointed to see the backsliding on human rights and academic freedom and free speech here in America,” said Varadkar. 

“What do I associate America with? I associate it with being one of the homes of democracy and helping to spread it around the world. I associate it with free speech, sometimes even saying any crazy thing you want. And I associate it with as being the birthplace of the LGBT liberation movement. I think of Stonewall. I think of the Castro,” he added. “It all started here, long before anyone in Ireland could ever imagine homosexual acts being decriminalized, let alone a gay person being the head of government.”

“To me this is where it all started,” said Varadkar. “It’s particularly worrying that things appear to be going in the wrong direction here, and that has impacts in the rest of the world too, that Americans might be very aware of.”

Varadkar also said he admires U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.), who in 2024 became the first openly trans person elected to Congress.

“She’s there for everyone in Delaware, and yes, she is trans too,” Varadkar told the Blade. “She’s willing to be a leader, but I think as LGBT leaders, we should make sure that our causes are part of the wider welfare and society and not separate.”