Gay China News & Reports 2003-05

6
China launches first gay HIV survey

by Ben Townley, Gay.com UK
China has launched its first survey of the number of gay HIV positive people in the country, in light of warnings that it must work hard to fight the virus. The country’s Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in the Heilongjiang Province will manage the survey, and has so far received 1,300 online questionnaires, the deputy head of the provincial disease and virus control institute Wu Yuhua told the country’s Xinhua state news service.

The country’s government decided to work with a website, since it was difficult to accurately research gay people in the closet, Yuhua said. The project is part of a joint programme with the US, looking at how China can better monitor, control and prevent the spread of the infection.

Hangzhou – The first HIV tests to be held in a Chinese gay bar were conducted on the weekend in the city of Hangzhou.
The program, a collaboration between the Zhejiang Provincial Health Bureau and the Howard Brown Health Center from the US, employed HIV rapid testing, the China Daily reports.

In addition to testing, a counseling service was also available and workers distributed safe sex manuals in the bar. " The purpose of the program is to prevent the spread of HIV among the gay population and the population at risk," said Keith J. Waterbrook, executive director of the Howard Brown Health Center.

About 60 gay men took the rapid test. Results were available in about 20 minutes and just over 3 per cent of those tested were found to be HIV positive. Those who showed positive were sent to a local hospital for a confirmatory blood test.

Officials said the first attempt to reach the gay community was promising. Xu Yi, one of the experts conducting the tests said some gay men are reluctant to be tested for fear of knowing the result, while others insist they could not be infected with HIV as they have established sexual partners, while still others are unconcerned about becoming infected, as they believe they have already been discarded by mainstream society.

About 80 per cent of gay men in China do not use condoms, according to research conducted by Xu. " Most of them know that they are at high risk of acquiring or transmitting the HIV infection and it is our responsibility to help them protect their own health and prevent transmission to others," Xu said.

Over 80 per cent of China’s estimated five to 10 million gays mistakenly believe they were "safe" from HIV virus, the country’s first-ever survey on the homosexual group revealed.

The survey found that 80.6 per cent of gay men are totally ignorant of their exposure to the virus or underestimate the risk. Lu Fan, Chief of Centre of AIDS Control and Prevention, said that among all sexually active Chinese men, approximately two to four per cent are gays, and as many as 1.35 per cent of those are infected with the AIDS virus.

" The gay community is one of the most vulnerable groups but they have long been ignored in China," Xinhua news agency quoted Lu as saying.

Infection rates among gay men were expected to rise rapidly unless prevention efforts were taken because many of them have limited knowledge, practice unprotected sex and have multiple sex partners, he said. The survey said 17.4 per cent of the gays also have female partners and 12.6 per cent of them are married, thereby increasing the likelihood of spread of the virus to heterosexuals and their offspring, Wu Yuhua, a researcher with the Heilongjiang provincial centre for disease control and prevention, said.

by Edmund Settle in Beijing
Has China come out of the closet?

Prevalence rates among gay men are likely much higher than declared. The national rate among men who have sex with men is reported to be 1.35 percent. But independent studies reveal local prevalence rates among this group may be as high as 3 percent. In 1989, China’s first reported domestic transmission of HIV occurred in Beijing through homosexual sex, and now gay men officially account for 17,813 cases, or 0.2 percent of all confirmed HIV/AIDS cases in China.

Chinese gay men are a potential bridge group that could channel HIV into the general population. An independent study released early in 2004 revealed that within a six-month period, up to 50 percent of gay men routinely participated in unsafe sex and 28 percent had sex with both men and women. Additional studies show that while over half of urban gay men eventually marry, many still maintain multiple same-sex partners. The figures are most likely higher among rural gay men.

Early AIDS-control policies exclusively identified AIDS as a medical issue and equated those infected, including intravenous drug users, prostitutes and homosexuals, as social deviants. In 1993, the director of the China’s National Institute of Health Education was dismissed for allegedly promoting gay civil rights by establishing China’s first HIV/AIDS program for gay men. Such punitive approaches have in effect limited any large-scale government or independent prevention and testing campaigns aimed at China’s gay communities.

Consequently, general HIV/AIDS knowledge among Chinese gay men remains dangerously deficient. Some 80 percent of Chinese gay men lack essential HIV/AIDS prevention knowledge, and 85 percent believe they were not at risk for contracting HIV, resulting in low voluntary testing rates. In Beijing, only 18 percent of gay men have acknowledged being tested for HIV, while up to a quarter have a history of sexually transmitted diseases.

Current government HIV programs are insufficient to prevent a large-scale AIDS outbreak among gay men. And members of the Chinese gay community has largely been absent in the country’s AIDS response. Their potential as truly effective community advocates could be tested on how well they coordinate a unified response to HIV/AIDS. Currently, less than a quarter of Chinese gay men take advantage of gay organizations’ existing outreach programs, like condom promotion and hotline services. In 1997 homosexuality was decriminalized, and in 2001 the Chinese Psychiatric Association declassified homosexuality as a pathological condition, thus allowing greater social and legal space for gay groups to increase their HIV-related community activities.

A gay and lesbian film festival due to be held at China’s Beijing University was forced to move venues after campus officials banned the event. The festival was billed as an Aids and sexual health event as organisers feared university officials would block the screening of gay films.

Attempts to access the website on a Chinese line were unsuccessful on Wednesday. The website uses a United States server and can still be accessed overseas. The ministry of public security, which has a unit in charge of censoring Internet content, could not immediately be reached for comment. Founded by two gay Chinese men in 1999, the website was later turned over to volunteers and quickly grew in content and popularity. It offers news of interest to gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people and information, such as how to practice safe sex and avoid getting HIV and Aids and other sexually transmitted diseases.

12
Human Rights Watch demands end to harassment of China AIDS activists

A leading rights group demanded China end its harassment of AIDS activists and gay rights campaigners to prove it is serious about fighting its HIV/AIDS epidemic. US-based Human Rights Watch said civil society groups and websites seeking to help drug users and other high-risk groups face routine state harassment and bureaucratic restrictions. " First-hand accounts provided to Human Rights Watch reveal that activists conducting AIDS information workshops or working with those at high risk of HIV have been harassed or detained," the group said in a 57-page report.

Pornography laws are even "used to censor websites providing AIDS information to gay men and lesbians". China faces what could be one of the largest HIV/AIDS epidemics in the world, with international experts predicting that more than 10 million Chinese could be infected with the human immune deficiency virus by 2010.

According to official figures, China has an estimated 840,000 people infected with HIV, including 80,000 with full-blown AIDS.
On Monday Premier Wen Jiabao told a visiting United Nations AIDS expert that the country was "determined and capable" of controlling the epidemic. " Grass-roots organizations have direct experience that could greatly strengthen the country’s fight against AIDS," said Meg Davis, China researcher for Human Rights Watch. " But in a number of regions they face harassment, censorship and even beatings because the Chinese government is suspicious of any activity outside its direct control."

The problems facing AIDS activists are most visible in Henan province, one of the epicenters of the epidemic, the group said.
Thousands of people, perhaps a million or more, were infected with HIV as a result of a profit-driven blood-selling scheme run by provincial officials throughout the 1990s, it said.

Although a program to deal with the epidemic is being implemented, none of the officials that profited from the blood-selling have been arrested while activists seeking to help the sick have been arrested or beaten, it said. " Henan officials have detained those activists who complained too loudly or who took matters into their own hands by initiating grass-roots initiatives to fill the gaps left by the state," the group said. " Dozens of activists have been jailed, and some have even been beaten by thugs hired by local officials."

June 16, 2005

13
Gejiu City Emerges as Model in China’s Effort to Reverse AIDS Record

by Jim Yardley
Gejiu – The storefront looks like just another downtown shop. But inside, health workers offer tests for H.I.V. and dispense methadone to drug users. Upstairs, a nonprofit group offers counseling and support for anyone with H.I.V. or AIDS. Not far away, another group has opened a drop-in center for parents of drug users to exchange information about how to prevent H.I.V. In another office, the city’s more than 1,000 prostitutes can receive free condoms, tests for H.I.V. or advice on how to avoid becoming infected.

Here in mountainous southwestern China, where heroin begat AIDS and AIDS begat death, discrimination and official denial, Gejiu is emerging as a model of how China is trying to reverse its once abysmal record on AIDS. In the last 18 months, China’s top leaders have made AIDS a national priority and introduced a host of policies, some contentious even by Western standards.

Not too long ago China denied it had an AIDS problem and tried to cover up a tainted blood-selling program that infected untold thousands of farmers. Even now, the police in some cities still arrest and harass advocates for AIDS patients or try to conceal the presence of the disease. But places like Gejiu are starting to carry out the central government’s new policies, including needle exchanges and making condoms available in hotel rooms. And the Health Ministry is planning a nationwide expansion. China now has 8 methadone clinics but wants to reach up to 5,000 by 2010.

" There are still many countries where this is against the law," said Dr. Peter Piot, executive director of Unaids, the United Nations program on H.I.V. and AIDS, of the needle and the methadone program. The remaining problems are daunting. China’s rural public health system is in near collapse, and few health workers are properly trained in treating H.I.V. or AIDS. Only one in nine infected people know they have H.I.V. A free antiretroviral drug program hurriedly introduced by the government in 2003 has had serious problems, with roughly one in five patients dropping out.

But international specialists agree that China’s new response far surpasses that of India and Russia, the other regional giants, which have even more severe AIDS problems. And Beijing’s newfound political will has impressed many skeptics.

" It’s clear that the senior leadership at the national level and the leadership in this province are taking this problem very seriously," said Randall Tobias, who leads the Bush administration’s AIDS program, in a visit in early June with Dr. Piot here in Yunnan Province.
The turning point, Dr. Piot said, came in 2003, when SARS, severe acute respiratory syndrome, showed the government that communicable diseases could pose not just a health threat but also a political one.

" It is SARS, to me, that made the most difference," he said. "Nothing did as much as the fear that SARS instilled in terms of the potential for destabilizing society."

The shift in attitude was signaled in December 2003 when Prime Minister Wen Jiabao met with AIDS patients, a gesture later repeated by President Hu Jintao. These symbolic steps have been accompanied by a doubling of the government’s budget for AIDS and several new policies, like needle exchanges and condom promotion. (Until 2002, condom advertising was banned.)
Specialists agree that China does not yet face a crisis like that in Africa, but they have predicted that more than 10 million Chinese could be infected with AIDS by 2010 if the government does not rapidly escalate its efforts. Since 2003, the Chinese government has estimated that 840,000 people are H.I.V. positive while another 80,000 have AIDS. Roughly 150,000 additional people with AIDS are believed to have died.

Heroin flows into Yunnan Province from neighboring Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar, bringing with it H.I.V. The province’s first cases were reported in 1989. With a population of 44 million, Yunnan now has only 200 health workers trained for the disease. Officials estimate that the province has 80,000 infected people, most of them intravenous drug users who have spread the disease by sharing needles.
In Gejiu, a city of 310,000 people on a route favored by drug traffickers, initial rounds of AIDS testing in recent years found more than 1,000 people with H.I.V., nearly all drug users or prostitutes. Tong Waiyuan, a vice mayor, explained that Yunnan’s new plan included needle exchanges, condom promotion, and more testing and education and counseling. "The whole society is involved," said Mr. Tong, wearing an AIDS pin as he briefed Dr. Piot and Mr. Tobias.

Dr. Piot and Mr. Tobias spent three days in Yunnan to highlight cooperation between the United States and the United Nations on AIDS. They chose Gejiu because a handful of the projects here are being financed with international money, some of it from the United States. Unlike some other provinces, Yunnan has welcomed international nonprofit groups and support from Britain, Australia and, more recently, the United States.

Nearly all of the projects in Gejiu are less than a year old, and just beginning to jell into a viable prevention and treatment network. Huge challenges remain. At the methadone clinic, paid for in part with money from the United States, Dr. Ming Xiangdong said more than 270 drug users had come for help since the clinic opened in April 2004. Demand is so high that a larger clinic opened in early June. But government regulations say that only drug users who have flunked out of official detoxification centers qualify for the methadone program – only the most hardened users.

At the Geiju Women’s Center, which also gets support from the United States, prostitutes receive education in H.I.V. prevention and the use of condoms, as well as counseling on changing professions. " I know lots of women with H.I.V.," said a woman at the center, who wore a white lace dress with a cellphone dangling from a green necklace. "All of them are still working."

She said the center’s workers were trying to get infected prostitutes out of the sex business or at least to use condoms. But prostitution, often in karaoke clubs, frequently is the highest paying work available to women, so prostitutes with H.I.V. sometimes keep their condition a secret.

Just as health officials are starting to reach out to prostitutes and drug users, public security officials in Yunnan have been cracking down. AIDS workers worry that a recent provincewide sweep of drug users will drive people infected with H.I.V. underground and increase, rather than reduce, the broader risk." They are making a group of people become like an enemy of society," said Yang Maobin, director of Daytops, a nonprofit program in the provincial capital of Kunming that helps drug users kick their habits.

In other provinces, the situation is often far worse. A new report by Human Rights Watch found that advocates for AIDS patients are still harassed by local officials. Web sites that provide AIDS information to gay people have been shut down. And in one widely reported incident, the police burst into a treatment center in a southern city and arrested drug users meeting with health workers.
Another immediate challenge for the central government is the limited availability of antiretroviral drugs. Many patients cannot tolerate the regimen offered in the free drug program, but the government does not yet have another regimen. Negotiations are under way with pharmaceutical companies, but China has resisted any steps that might infringe upon patent law.

14
Gay revolution puts red China in the pink

by Hamish McDonald, Herald Correspondent in Shanghai
The word "tongzhi", or comrade, used to be the unisex, equalising term of address in the socialist world of Mao Zedong’s New China.
Type it into an internet search engine now, especially in a Chinese-language version, and today’s China emerges in a whole new light – pink rather than revolutionary red.

In one of the more delightful linguistic subversions of this fast-changing country, the term has been appropriated by China’s male homosexuals to refer to themselves and has spread widely into the general community with the same meaning. The search generates an alternative map of Shanghai, the vast seaboard metropolis that is China’s most socially avant-garde centre, mirrored less luridly perhaps in dozens of other cities.

From a plush Arabian-style restaurant with hookahs and divans in the centre of the city to discreet club-style bars in the backstreets of the old French quarter, from corners of certain parks to bathhouses, venues for gay encounters are quite openly advertised and tolerated. " We never have any trouble from the police, and no gay-bashing," said Xiaohai (Little Sea), a 21-year-old from inland Jiangsu province who works as a host in the KM Bar, a gay haunt where he and other young men in tight jeans and singlet-tops chat with customers. "China is very safe for us."

Shanghai is still far from the decadence, excess and exploitation that the homosexual English writers W.H.Auden and Christopher Isherwood experienced in the 1930s. But it is leading China in acceptance of homosexuality. In the latest breakthrough, the city’s prestigious Fudan University has announced it will offer a course in Homosexual Studies to undergraduates from all faculties as a degree credit in the academic year starting next month. More than 100 students have enrolled.

Sun Zhongxin, an assistant-professor of sociology directing the course, said it would approach homosexuality from cultural, legal and other social perspectives. Previously, Chinese universities have only touched the subject, if at all, at graduate level in medical schools. " It’s not a radical approach," Professor Sun Zhongxin said. "But this could change society in a radical way."

In the Chinese hinterland, except in a few big cities such as Beijing and Chongqing, the gay emergence is more tentative but strengthening among a homosexual community that statistically must number some tens of millions. In May, about 40 "comrades" attached themselves to a sports parade in Dalian, carrying placards calling for tolerance of gays. In June, others flew kites in front of Shenyang’s city hall to mark a gay-awareness day.

Like heterosexuals, China’s gays and lesbians have benefited from the retreat of the communist state from the puritanism that Mao forced on everyone except himself, and the official attitude that homosexuality was a "mouldering lifestyle of capitalism". Legal reform in 1997 removed the all-purpose crime of "hooliganism", often applied to gay men arrested while looking for sex in public toilets and parks, along with the crime of sodomy – effectively decriminalising homosexuality. In 2001, it was removed from the official list of mental disorders.

And, as elsewhere, the need to control the spread of AIDS has led authorities, however reluctantly at first, to enlist the help of homosexual activists, while the internet has provided a medium of advice, confession and contact. Chinese gays moved into a legal and social environment often described as the "three no’s" – "no approval, no disapproval, and no promotion".

Li Yinhe, a leading researcher on homosexuals, has described China as "a half-heaven for homosexuals". Many scholars and gays think the country has moved back to a traditional ambiguity about sexuality. On one hand, China’s religions permitted diversity: Buddhism regarding all sexual desire pretty equally as something to be relinquished; and Taoism accepting that people could have differing balances of yang and yin (male and female). On the other, Confucius pronounced that men should behave as men, and women as women, and that "there are three things which are unfilial and the greatest of these is to have no posterity".

In practice, it was often accepted that young men could have sex with each other as a part of friendship, and that married men could have sex with boys, or female concubines and prostitutes, or both, as long as they married and produced an heir. "The atmosphere for man-man sex has been quite free and loose in Chinese culture," says Tong Ge, China’s leading gay novelist, who writes under this nom-de-plume. "It’s not about sexual preference, but more about sexual roles and sexual identity. For example, if a man of high status had sexual relations with a man of low status like a barber or a waiter, people would not blame him and just regard him as a playboy. They would assume he was the inserter, rather than the insertee. This role-playing would be how they judge the issue." At Shanghai’s KM Bar, Xiaohai echoes this attitude. If a customer is nice, he will go off and spend the night with him. "They are usually well-educated, professional men and businessmen," he said, with a touch of pride.

Tong Ge, who is in his late 50s, said the haunts for homosexuals had changed dramatically in recent years. "Up until about 1998 we used to meet in public toilets and parks," he said. "Now there are bars, meetings, and even sports events." Yet the writer’s own life expresses the poignant half-world of China’s homosexuals. His novels like Good Boy Luo Ge have not been published in the Chinese mainland, only in Hong Kong, under a still-prurient censorship policy that has also restricted exhibition of some fine Chinese and Hong Kong films dealing with gay and lesbian stories.

September 7, 2005

15
Gays live a difficult life under social bias

The roommate offered him a choice: Gu could pay him 5,000 yuan (US$616) in hush money or he would tell the boss. Gu was agitated, but thought the man was bluffing. A few days later, he was called to see the head of the company. " I heard you have been engaged in hooliganism," said the boss, using a term that covers conduct as severe as rape and as light as saying four-letter words, or "shua liu mang" in Chinese.

Gu denied doing anything wrong, but upon interrogation he admitted he was a homosexual and had been leafing through a few gay-themed websites in his spare time. He said he did not look at porno sites, however. But his boss was not interested in such technicalities. He threatened to slap him with some kind of penalty. Before that materialised, Gu was faced with the biggest penalty he could imagine: The incident was reported to his parents. His father was so furious he disowned the son. "I wish I’d never had you as my son," he yelled.

The news struck Gu Du’s mother as a bolt of lightning from the sky. She fell sick and had to be hospitalised. His brother and sister refused to talk to him any more, saying they were "ashamed of having a sibling who’s abnormal. "In despair, Gu Du thought of killing himself. "I couldn’t go to work again. Even though they didn’t fire me, I had to suffer the looks from all my colleagues," he told China Daily. He ended up leaving Chengdu for Hangzhou, a city where he didn’t know anyone and nobody knew he was gay.

But the changing law does not necessarily change public perception. Most gay people interviewed for this story agree that the single biggest source of pressure and stigma comes from their own families. " My employer doesn’t care about my private life, and the neighbourhood grandma is not nosey any more. But there’s no way I can get past my own mum and dad," said Lu Youni, a Guangzhou high school teacher.

Most parents cannot imagine in their wildest dreams that their children could be gay. They usually do not pick up the subtle signals that hint that their kids may be attracted to those of their own sex. When revelation dawns, it is normally such a shock that it feels like falling into a vortex of tongue-tied humiliation. " They’d rather I became paralysed, so that they could give me unconditional love and sympathy. If I became an alien, at least they would be curious about me," said Gu Du.

Unlike Gu, a few people take the calculated step of "coming out" to their parents. Fei Xue, a Jiangsu man who works in a local tax agency, had maintained a very close relationship with his father, who is a medical expert. Believing he was in a better position than most gay men whose parents are "less educated about these things," Fei showed his diary to his father, in which he detailed his emotional life. Father thumbed through each page, and then left his room quietly. The next day, his father told him to cut off all connections with his gay friends and forbade him to leave his hometown for work elsewhere. " Now I advise others to be extremely cautious before they come out," he sighed.

Some men search for lesbians in order to feign marriages that can be mutually beneficial. But since finding a lesbian is much harder than finding a gay man in China, most settle into a "marriage of convenience" in which the other party is kept in the dark.
Many also want to believe that they can change their sexual orientation if they try hard enough. These marriages invariably end in tragedy. However, they do take off much of the pressure from the family. Parents tend to believe that gay children do not remarry because they are heart-broken from their failed marriage, and if the marriage results in offspring, so much the better. However, more and more young people oppose these arrangements on moral grounds. Unless their spouses know the situation when tying the conjugal knot, it is unethical to involve them in these cover-up schemes, they insist.

The more imminent danger is not moral, but physiological. Gay men who lead double lives are far more likely to spread the HIV virus to their families and to the heterosexual community, doctors maintain. " Discrimination has made life difficult for gays in China," said Cai Yumao, a medical expert in Shenzhen involved in the Rainbow Work Team, a community outreach programme that helps gays on health matters. " Because they cannot lead a normal sexual life, some of them are tempted to live on the edge and take risks when it comes to sexual practices."

Most encouraging are the hotlines and health centres that have cropped up in cities like Shenzhen, Chongqing and Hangzhou.
Homosexuals can consult specialists for psychological and medical help. Tests for HIV and venereal diseases are offered free, with guaranteed anonymity.

September 8, 2005

16
A Chinese University Removes a Topic From the Closet

by Howard W. French
Shanghai – As the class got under way, the diminutive teacher standing before an overcrowded lecture hall in this city’s most exclusive university handed out a survey. The first of several multiple-choice questions asked students what their feelings would be if they encountered two male lovers: total acceptance, reluctant acceptance, rejection or disgust?

As a way of breaking the ice, the teacher, Sun Zhongxin, 35, with a Ph.D. in sociology and a fondness for PowerPoint presentations, read aloud some of the answers anonymously. In her survey, most of the 120 or so students said they would reluctantly accept gay lovers in their midst.

The Fudan University class, Introduction to Gay and Lesbian Studies, is the first of its kind ever offered to Chinese undergraduates, and Ms. Sun briefly wondered why it was so well attended, before providing her own answer. "The attitude toward homosexuality in China is changing," she said. "It is a good process, but it also makes us feel heavy-hearted. What’s unfortunate about such heavy attendance is that it indicates that many people have never discussed the topic before."

" Not only are people hiding in the closet," she concluded, "but the topic itself has been hiding in the closet." A class like this would be unremarkable on most American university campuses, where many students are quite open about their homosexuality and the curriculum has long included offerings reflecting their interests. But among China’s gay and lesbian population, which may be as large as 48 million by some estimates though it remains largely invisible, the new course is being portrayed as a major advance.

Less than a decade ago, homosexuality was still included under the heading of hooliganism in China’s criminal code, and it was only in 2001 that the Chinese Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses. " This is definitely a big breakthrough in the contemporary society, because for so many years, homosexuals, as a community, have lived at the edge of society and have been treated like dissidents," said Zhou Shengjian, director of a gay advocacy group in Chongqing, an inland city far from Shanghai’s cosmopolitanism. "For such a university to have a specific course like this, with so many participants and experts involved, will have a very positive impact on the social situation of gay people, and on the fight against AIDS."

However much they welcomed the academic breakthrough, which is likely to spur similar courses on other campuses and perhaps eventually give rise to a gay and lesbian studies movement, many of today’s gay and lesbian activists say they are no longer willing simply to wait patiently for the society to accept them. In particular, gay activists have been able to leverage the rising alarm over the spread of AIDS to win more maneuvering space, including more acceptance from the government. Today, for example, by some estimates there are as many as 300 Web sites in China that cater to the concerns of gay men and lesbians.

Some of the sites focus strictly on health issues. Others tread into the delicate area of discrimination and human rights, and these are occasionally blocked temporarily or shut down by the government. Others feature downloadable fiction by gay writers, who deal candidly with matters of sexuality in ways that few publishers in China’s tightly controlled book industry would allow. One of the most popular sites (www.gztz.org) includes detailed maps of gay entertainment areas, from saunas to nightclubs, in China and overseas.

" In each provincial capital there is at least one gay working group that is active on H.I.V.-AIDS prevention," said Zhen Li, 40, a volunteer for a gay hot line based in Beijing. "AIDS is not the main focus of our lives, though. We use the discussion of AIDS as a way of coming together on other issues, from getting coverage of gay life in the media to starting a discussion with the society." For the most part, activists say, the government’s attitude has been pragmatic. Groups that say they want to work on AIDS get official support. Those that focus on equal rights for gay people generally do not. In almost the same breath, though, many also acknowledge that their strategy of using AIDS to create greater freedom carries a risk that they will be blamed for the spread of the disease.

A 52-year-old lesbian in the northeastern city of Dalian, who gave her name as Yang, said she had discovered her sexual identity only at age 36, after marriage, when she had her first relationship with another woman, a factory co-worker. " When we were together, people would talk about our relationship behind our backs or sometimes ask outright whether we were gay people," Ms. Yang said. "I was just ashamed and didn’t know what to say, so I avoided my girlfriend in public occasions. The young gay people in Dalian today, though, seem to live in a very comfortable time." " They’re not forced to get married," she said, "and they take new partners one after another."

22 September 2005

17
Press Release: Utopia Guide to Gay and Lesbian China– first gay and lesbian guide to 45 cities in China.–Including Hong Kong and Macau. A Revealing Glimpse at the World of Chinese Gays and Lesbians

Editor and photographs: John Goss

The Utopia Guide to China is the first printed book to detail the gay and lesbian scene in 45 Chinese cities including Beijing, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Hong Kong, Kunming, Nanjing, Macau, Shanghai, Shenyang, Shenzhen, Suzhou, Xiamen, and Xian. Listed within are contact details for organizations and businesses that are popular social alternatives for both Chinese and foreign homosexuals. In addition to bars, discos, bookshops, spas, and restaurants, there is also a special section for women, highlighting Chinese groups and clubs that are especially welcoming to lesbians. Hundreds of savvy comments and recommendations from local gays provide insights for both seasoned travelers and armchair explorers. The guidebook is multi-lingual, with Chinese instructions for taxi drivers included for some of the most popular venues.

18
China: Police Shut Down Gay, Lesbian Event

New York – In shutting down Beijing’s first-ever gay and lesbian cultural festival, the Chinese government violated basic freedoms and persecuted activists who are addressing the country’s burgeoning AIDS crisis, Human Rights Watch and the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network said today in letters to the Chinese authorities. "China continues to talk about political reform, but closing down a cultural event is a crude reminder of the limits on openness," said Scott Long, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. "This police raid was an effort to drive China’s gay and lesbian communities underground and to silence open discussions about sexuality throughout the country."

Human Rights Watch and the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network today sent letters detailing these human rights abuses to the Chinese President Hu Jintao, Premier Wen Jiabao, the Ministry of Public Security and the State Council Committee on HIV/AIDS.
Organizers planning the Beijing Gay and Lesbian Culture Festival anticipated a groundbreaking weekend of films, plays, exhibitions and seminars about homosexuality, a subject that has long been taboo in China. Participants were to include noted academic researchers, actors, filmmakers and artists, as well as activists for sexual rights and health, specifically HIV/AIDS.

The event was originally booked to take place at the "798 Factory" art colony in the Dashanzi area of Beijing. But on Wednesday, December 14, two days before the opening, the Beijing Public Security Bureau banned the organizers from using the "798 Factory" area. The organizing committee, some of whose members reported police surveillance, decided to move the festival to a private establishment, the On/Off bar. About 3 p.m. on Friday, just before the start of activities, around a dozen uniformed police, accompanied by plainclothesmen, raided the bar and shut down the event.

According to the event’s organizers, police ripped down signs, decorations and posters. They filmed the raid and festival attendees, and ordered the bar closed for a week. " This raid is part of a pattern of censorship and harassment of Chinese activists working for sexual rights and health," said Joanne Csete, executive director of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network. "The Chinese government tells the world that it is dealing with HIV/AIDS in internationally acceptable ways, but continues to persecute civil society organizations that can lead the way to effective programs."

As Human Rights Watch documented in its June 2005 report, "Restrictions on AIDS Activists in China Chinese authorities have shut down websites offering information to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

Film director Cui Zi’en is sensitive to the topic of fire lately. Last Friday evening, a quiet opening for the 1st Beijing Gay and Lesbian Culture Festival, in which Cui was the art director, had to be called off because the venue failed to meet proper safety standards, as police informed him. Originally planned for the end of September, the first ever homosexual festival had already been postponed behind the schedule as organizers tried to get adequate preparation and find the right venue.

As a well-known avant-garde art area of the city, Cui had thought that the 798 art zone would be less conspicuous to host the gay and lesbian festival. Preparations for the opening were thorough and completed before the opening day. But failure to acquire an approval for an organized event forced the festival to look elsewhere, one day before the scheduled opening, December 16.
Yet the fire issue proved to be hazardous enough as the final opening at a gay bar near the Workers’ Stadium had to be cut short because of it. " We were told to stop because we did not submit our requisition to register to stage such a large-scale, organized activity," said Cui.

Consisting of contemporary art exhibitions, stage performances, a cultural forum and student campus activities, the three-day festival planned to run from December 16 to 18 was also highlighted for an exhibition of media voice that reviews the previous media reports across the country in recent years as supporting evidence backing up the festival solemnity and the organizers’ confidence. As one of the festival’s slogans says, the organizers and the festival attendants hoped to "say goodbye together to the mosaic age of homosexuality".

" This time we have more initiative with our own claims and beliefs. The festival is not simply an event of exhibitions but a specific allegation that we are not doing something without proper support. We have done a lot of things deep, meaningful, far-sighted and persisting," Cui remarked.

Sponsored by international foundations, the festival was managed by an equal-powered committee and relied heavily on volunteers and homosexual organizations across the country. Although receiving wide and earnest attention from home and abroad, the organizers, knowing the sensitivity of the festival theme, tactfully kept their operation low profile. " Our committee is not a chaired committee as each member has equal power," explained Cui. "That’s why we split over the discussion about whether we should inform the printed media early or not. In the end we decided to inform the press a few days ahead of the festival."

" The attitude towards homosexuality in China is to keep one eye open and another closed on the issue. You can do something related to the topic if the eye is closed to give you an acquiescent pass, and, of course, the same is true vice-versa," said Cui.
Such embarrassment is a good reflection of how homosexuality as an issue is treated in China. Traditionally labelled as a mental disorder only removed from the psychological disease category till 2001, homosexuality is still something that is left in between upright recognition and rigorous denial.

The lack of relative laws in China results in a vacuum that is easily subjected to administrative will, which, as Cui analyzed, is hardly going to improve because the government is dragging its feet on gay legislation. " The government are not prepared and experienced in handling various social problems," said Cui.

According to the materials of the festival, major pride events in China’s homosexual history can be dated back to 1990 when a drama called "Kiss of the Spiderwomen" was performed in the small theatre at the Beijing Film Academy.

In 1991, after Tang Libin and Lei Ou opened their homosexual identity to newspaper interviews from the Canadian Globe Mail and American Washington Post, various helplines, organizations, releases of movies, books, media reports, websites and other activities were charted. " But all these are on a civil level and spontaneous, the work of mavericks. Such civil culture is often regarded as sub-mainstream, sub-culture, wild and sometimes dangerous so it is pushed aside instead of getting adequate approval," said Cui. " An open and far-sighted society should observe such cultures and tolerate and embrace homosexuality. It is an important yardstick to measure the openness of a society," emphasized Cui.

December 26, 2005

20
Chinese Gays: The Dark Before the Dawn (excerpts with commentary by Doug Ireland)

" Despite the stigma and public admonishments, China’s gay community is taking its first tentative steps out of a closet that was, until recently, firmly bolted. In 1997, the word "hooligan" was deleted from China’s criminal code in reference to gays arrested for soliciting in public places. The move is considered by many as the de facto decriminalization of homosexual acts and was followed in April 2001 by the deletion of homosexuality from the Chinese Classification of Mental Disorders.

"Now, marking gay-awareness month June 12 by flying kites in Beijing, Shenyang and Fuzhou, and turning out in numbers for the country;s first national gay and lesbian festival December 16 in Beijing, organized by Cui Zi’ en, a gay associate professor at the Beijing Film Academy, are acts that illustrate changing attitudes toward the pink revolution. [Photo above left: Cui zi’en, shown below a gay rights poster, was the first Chinese intellectual to come out, in 1990–D.I.]

[Note: This China Daily/Beijing Review article omits to mention that the festival referred to above was raided and stopped by police, The Times of London reported on December 17, the day after it was to have taken place. According to the Times’ China correspondent, "Organisers had planned to hold their festival of films, plays, exhibitions and seminars on homosexuality at one of the trendiest artistic communities in China. The venue was to be the studios and warehouses at the 798 complex of converted factory buildings in northeastern Beijing. Most of the capital’s hippest and most happening events take place among the grey concrete blocks, fashionable French bistro-style bars and industrial pipes of 798. Police notified studio owners that the event would not be allowed to proceed. Li Yinhe, a distinguished sociologist from the prestigious Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, had been invited to address the opening, but had to stay away. The group of about 30 participants bold enough to reveal their sexuality in China’s conservative society were undeterred by the cancellation. They decided to move their ground-breaking event to On/Off, a Beijing gay bar. Police swarmed around the bar even before the group arrived. ‘This bar is temporarily closed for review,’ police told would-be festival participants," the Times of London concluded. Human Rights Watch issued a press release denouncing the ban on the festival. — D.I. ]

The China Daily/Beijing Review article notes that, "The word tongzhi, literally meaning comrade (people with the same ideals),is now widely accepted by gays and lesbians as a self-reference in this country. Googling the Chinese character for tongzhi produces some astonishing results…." [Note: the term tongzhi for gay was adopted by a national conference of 200 Chinese gays held in Hong Kong in 1996, when Hong Kong was still under British control; the conference issued China’s first gay manifesto. There is now an Institute for Tongzhi Studies at the City University of New York — D.I.]

" Sociologist and gay novelist Tong Ge’s impassioned call for ‘comrades to melt the frozen land with our body heat’ galvanized Chinese professionals into lobbying the government for the approval of same-sex marriage, regardless of the very real obstacles lying ahead.

" Zhang Beichuan (seated in photo on the right) — China’s leading scholar in the field of homosexual study and winner of the 2000 Barry & Martin Prize awarded to individuals making outstanding contributions to the AIDS awareness campaign — estimates there are 40 million homosexuals on the Chinese mainland, far more than the official figure of between 5 and 10 million released by the Ministry of Health in December 2004. This huge number, equal to the population of Spain, can no longer be ignored by society.

" Conan Liu, 24, a tax consultant with one of the Big Four accounting firms, told Beijing Review that he has never tried to conceal his sexual orientation since finding out he is gay. Unlike the older generation, Conan’s age group is more willing to talk about their lives and love experiences. Fashionably dressed and charming, Conan is proud of who he is. ‘My friends usually say that I need to be protected,’ he smiled, saying that he seldom has difficulties either at work or in his life. ‘Most people around me understand and accept my homosexual orientation,’ Conan said. As for those who don’t like men behaving in a feminine manner, he’s defiant. ‘I like the way I am and I will stay away from those who dislike me. It’s no big deal.’ In spite of his carefree attitude, Conan has not been able to admit his sexual orientation to his parents. It’s a common situation throughout the Chinese gay community.

" In interviews conducted with gay people, Beijing Review found that family members were always the last to know and the most difficult to tell. A Confucius saying may best explain the Chinese difficulty in accepting homosexuality: There are three things that are unfilial–disobeying one’s parents, not supporting one’s parents and, the most important, not continuing the family line. Hao Ting, a 17-year-old sophomore at Peking University, said that most of his friends know he is gay. But he still felt uneasy telling his parents. Chinese homosexuals do not want to disappoint their families by not being able to produce heirs.

" As Zhang Beichuan noted, homosexuals in China mostly feel guilty and sorry for their family. Homosexuality can be tolerated as long as they still give birth to the next generation, as the Chinese have a strong sense of family ties, said Zhang Beichuan. ‘But it is too painful to marry a person that you don’t really love.’"

The article adds, "Currently, there are more than 10 bars catering to gays and lesbians across urban Beijing [That’s not very many when you consider that Beijing’s population is now 15.25 million! — D.I.]…Moreover, hundreds of websites are devoted to the gay scene in China, with almost every city having a dedicated site." But the article fails to note that — as a comprehensive Human Rights Watch Report on "Restrictions on AIDS Activists in China" put it in June 2005 — "Chinese authorities have shut down websites offering information to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people." To read the entire China Daily/Beijing Review article, see following article below.

by Liu Yunyun
Being gay in China is beginning to lose its stigma, but it’s still not easy coming out for them. Little over four years ago, homosexuality was still officially classified as a mental disorder in China. On December 16, 2005, China’s gays and lesbians celebrated their first national festival.

Being Myself
Conan Liu, like many gays in big cities, doesn’t conceal his sexual orientation.
It’s a huge leap forward in a country long associated with closed attitudes toward alternative lifestyles. Despite the stigma and public admonishments, China’s gay community is taking its first tentative steps out of a closet that was, until recently, firmly bolted.

In 1997, the word "hooligan" was deleted from China’s criminal code in reference to gays arrested for soliciting in public places.
The move is considered by many as the de facto decriminalization of homosexual acts and was followed in April 2001 by the deletion of homosexuality from the Chinese Classification of Mental Disorders.

Now, marking gay-awareness month June 12 by flying kites in Beijing, Shenyang and Fuzhou, and turning out in numbers for the country;s first national gay and lesbian festival December 16 in Beijing, organized by Cui Zi’ en, a gay associate professor at the Beijing Film Academy, are acts that illustrate changing attitudes toward the pink revolution.

The word tongzhi, literally meaning comrade (people with the same ideals), is now widely accepted by gays and lesbians as a self-reference in this country. Googling the Chinese character for tongzhi produces some astonishing results. There are many gay activities taking place on the mainland. Gay bars, spas, meetings, bathhouses and a thriving online community are allowing open venues for gatherings that not long ago were restricted to public toilets and parks.

Sociologist and gay novelist Tong Ge’s impassioned call for "comrades to melt the frozen land with our body heat" galvanized Chinese professionals into lobbying the government for the approval of same-sex marriage, regardless of the very real obstacles lying ahead.
Zhang Beichuan, China’s leading scholar in the field of homosexual study and winner of 2000 Barry & Martin Prize awarded to individuals making outstanding contributions to the AIDS awareness campaign, estimates there are 40 million homosexuals on the Chinese mainland, far more than the official figure of between 5 and 10 million released by the Ministry of Health in December 2004. This huge number, equal to the population of Spain, can no longer be ignored by society.

Unlike the older generation, Conan’s age group is more willing to talk about their lives and love experiences. Fashionably dressed and charming, Conan is proud of who he is. "My friends usually say that I need to be protected," he smiled, saying that he seldom has difficulties either at work or in his life.

" Most people around me understand and accept my homosexual orientation," Conan said. As for those who don’t like men behaving in a feminine manner, he’s defiant. "I like the way I am and I will stay away from those who dislike me. It’s no big deal." In spite of his carefree attitude, Conan has not been able to admit his sexual orientation to his parents. It’s a common situation throughout the Chinese gay community.

In interviews conducted with gay people, Beijing Review found that family members were always the last to know and the most difficult to tell. A Confucius saying may best explain the Chinese difficulty in accepting homosexuality: There are three things that are unfilial–disobeying one’s parents, not supporting one’s parents and, the most important, not continuing the family line. Hao Ting, a 17-year-old sophomore at Peking University, said that most of his friends know he is gay. But he still felt uneasy telling his parents. Chinese homosexuals do not want to disappoint their families by not being able to produce heirs.

As Zhang Beichuan noted, homosexuals in China mostly feel guilty and sorry for their family. Homosexuality can be tolerated as long as they still give birth to the next generation, as the Chinese have a strong sense of family ties, said Zhang Beichuan. "But it is too painful to marry a person that you don’t really love."

Being Entertained
An Yi, Beijing’s 10-BAR owner, shared his experience with opening the first lesbian bar in Beijing in 1998. A bar operated by one of his friends was losing money due to poor management and inconvenient location.

Being part of the gay circle, An suggested the owner re-design the bar for lesbians only. "At that time, we dared not advertise openly in the streets or through publications. Word of mouth was the only way to get people in," he recalled. In just two months, the city’s first lesbian bar was a popular venue on weekends. However, it eventually shut down due to lack of sustained spending power and a relatively small group of lesbians in the city.

A survey released by psychologists in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, finds more homosexuals in coastal cities than in inland cities, with more gays than lesbians. The survey also reports an above average IQ and 93 percent of respondents having senior high school education or above. Because of the more diversified education, Zhang Beichuan said homosexuals are more aware of their emotional and physical needs.

China’s gays who are open about their sexual orientation are mostly young people with higher education and a relatively free working and living environment. Apart from an uneasiness to tell parents, they live a good life in bigger cities. " If you asked to have an interview with me two or three years ago, I would reply with an absolute ‘no’ as the social environment was not as tolerant as it is today," said An. He believes the gay scene is in the "dark before dawn" phase, and predicts the government will legalize same-sex relationships and marriage in the near future.

It is also his belief that China will never ban homosexuality. "Many of my guests and customers are high-ranking government officials and executives of big companies," explained An. "Do you think those people will shut their eyes to a law that will prohibit or punish themselves? Things are destined to change for the better."

Decorated with classical Chinese lanterns, lively rockeries and green artificial bamboo, 10BAR now sees a weekly income of around 80,000 yuan ($10,000), up from about 8,000 yuan ($1,000) a year ago.

Currently, there are more than 10 bars catering to gays and lesbians across urban Beijing, according to An. Moreover, hundreds of websites are devoted to the gay scene in China, with almost every city having a dedicated site. " People are busier making money now," said Tony Li, owner of Shanghai’s Vogue gay bar. "They don’t have time to bother other people, and they are getting more and more information from abroad, so there is a higher degree of tolerance toward gays."

China’s prestigious Fudan University in Shanghai this year began offering a course focusing on sociological aspects of homosexuality. "The previous course mainly focused on how to prevent AIDS in homosexuals. But now, we will pay more attention to the development of a proper view about homosexuals," said Gao Yanning, who lectures students in the class. "We will give students equitable information on homosexuals and help eliminate students’ prejudice."

Same-Sex Marriage
Ma Lu, a dropout of the University of Science and Technology of China, would have never thought his classmates or roommates would understand his sexual orientation before he admitted he was gay. At first, his roommates were shocked and even tried to introduce him to girls. But their effort was in vain. Gradually they accepted him. He was surprised that he was not discriminated against and the attitude of his peers has given him the courage to speak openly about his sexual orientation. "I am proud of being a gay," said Ma.

Most of those who choose to "come out" about their homosexuality are the only child in the family, said Fudan University Professor Gao Yanning, adding that Chinese parents prefer to tolerate their children’s sexual orientation rather than lose them. For homosexuals, their great expectation is the legalization of gay and lesbian marriages. They need a certificate to show to others that they do want to take responsibility for a family. " Neither society nor the law gives us the right to take responsibility," complained Li Yan, a bisexual, who spoke to Beijing Review at the Rainbow Bar, a lesbian bar in Beijing. " Nobody knows how much I want to take responsibility for my ‘wife’," said another patron named Ba Jian (pseudonym)."I want to stay with her, but there is no chance for us getting married due to social pressure."

Zhang Beichuan told Beijing Review that according to his research, same-sex relationship usually lasts for 30 months. The average time span for a heterosexual relationship is about 36 months, after which they either break up or get married. " If there is no marriage option and support, what will happen to heterosexual lovers? Who knows?" Zhang argued. About 75 percent of homosexuals are hoping to find a life-long same-sex partner, but the proportion of those who do is less than 5 percent. " We gays or lesbians will not bear children. I think that is good news for our society, which is overloaded by the huge population," joked Ma Lu.

His view is surprisingly reflected by Li Yinhe’s proposal to legalize homosexual marriage. Li, who submitted the same-sex marriage proposal to China’s top legislature twice, in 2000 and in 2004, said from historical data and cross-culture study, countries that are burdened with a fast-growing population normally adopt a relatively tolerant policy toward homosexuals; while countries with small populations are strict with same-sex marriage, because the homosexual population will directly influence the whole population of a country.

" Statistics show that homosexuals account for 3 to 4 percent of the total population. In China, the homosexual population is between 39 million and 52 million. As there is no law permitting same-sex marriage, those people will finally form a family with a heterosexual and bear children. If they can form a family with a homosexual, then it will be conducive to the population control of our country," said Li who has suggested an amendment to the Marriage Law that "changes the wife and husband expression into spouse and the enactment of a new same-sex marriage law. Although her proposals have not met with success, she remains optimistic about the future of the same-sex marriage.

There is also a need by the gay community to have more coverage in the media about same-sex relationships so they can keep in touch with happenings within the community. Currently only the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and Canada have laws legalizing same-sex marriage. South Africa’s highest court recognized a lesbian marriage December 1, and gave the country’s parliament a year to extend legal marital rights to all same-sex couples.

Other countries offer gay people a form of partnership with more restricted rights than heterosexual marriage. In 1999, France introduced a civil contract for cohabiting couples irrespective of gender, and Germany has enacted legislation for "life partnership" for gay people. " It is a legislative trend across the world," said Li Yinhe. "China will definitely catch up with this trend, in spite of obstacles we are confronted with now. Ultimately, people will accept the idea that everyone has the right and freedom to love and marry, whether it is homosexual or heterosexual," concluded Zhang Beichuan. "Love is, after all, the most beautiful thing in this world."