TAIPEI -- Taiwan, which hosts one of Asia's largest Pride parades every autumn, has long been known for its progressive attitudes toward LGBT communities.

But now that the island has legalized same-sex marriage, it might come to be known for a conservative backlash against the gay community.

Since May, when Taiwan became the first in Asia to grant marriage equality, conservative groups have been targeting the Gender Equity Education Act of 2004, which originally called for upholding human dignity and gender equality but in recent years has also been used to implement anti-discrimination and LGBT sex education courses.

As a result, LGBT rights activists, who spent years campaigning for marriage equality and were still celebrating their court-mandated victory, have had to campaign for unity all over again.

In late September, more than 500 people, some hoisting large rainbow flags, marched in Hualien, about 120 km south of Taipei. The parade, in its ninth year, is meant to show that Taiwan has LGBT brothers and sisters far away from the capital, too.

The theme of this year's parade -- "We were originally grown from the same root" -- is a verse by Cao Zhi, a poet of China's Three Kingdoms period (220 AD to 280 AD). The poem it came from was Cao Zhi's answer to his jealous brother Cao Pi, who feared the popular Cao Zhi had designs on his throne. Cao Pi ordered Cao Zhi to use poetry to prove otherwise. Cao Zhi did so, using simple but descriptive metaphors for the brothers' biological relationship.

Yang Yong-qing, a 20-year-old college student who served as a secretary of the parade's organizing group, said discrimination against the island's LGBT communities is intensifying. Read more via Nikkei Asian Review