SEOUL – On Wednesday, Kim Kyu-jin became the first openly gay Korean woman to give birth. While the birth of her child is a unique event here, it was a casual conversation over lunch which first sparked the idea of becoming a mother. “You are married? You are going to have a baby, right?” The question was posed to her by her boss at a multinational company in France. The question got her thinking, “If this kind of question can be so easily asked over lunch on the first day of work because it’s common here, why not?” she told The Korea Herald in an interview in July. Kim describes herself as “one of many people you would encounter on your daily commute,” but she has now found herself in the public eye on two occasions so far. The first came in 2019 when she married her partner, and the second came earlier this year, when she announced her pregnancy.