"Mr. Bae has been supporting an orphanage and running a bakery with the North Korean authorities' agreement, " said Do Hee-yoon, a member of Seoul-based activist group Citizen's Coalition for the Human Rights of North Korean Refugees.
"The social exclusion level (on sex minorities) has declined a lot compared with when Hong Suk-chon came out ... so chances for our society to embrace them have increased a lot, " said Cho Hee-Yeon, a sociology professor at Seoul's Sungkonghoe University.