China News Report 2003-05

by Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network
A new study of men who have sex with men in China - where HIV/AIDS threatens to explode in the next decade - suggests that roughly 3 percent of gay and bisexual men in the nation's capital city have HIV. According to a Reuters Health report, researchers interviewed 481 men in Beijing who said they had sex with men. The individuals received HIV tests, and 15 men, or 3.1 percent, were infected with the AIDS-causing virus.

The researchers, led by Dr. Kyung-Hee Choi of the University of California, San Francisco, noted that nearly half of the group had unprotected anal sex with a man in the previous six months, and 22 percent had unprotected anal or vaginal sex with a woman during the same time period. In addition, men over 39 years of age were 4.5 times more likely to be infected with HIV than younger men. The ratio reportedly disturbed the scientists because the older men were more likely to have been married and could "contribute to the sexual transmission of HIV to heterosexually active adults."

The findings are reported in the June 21 issue of The Lancet. Little data is available about China's gay and bisexual population. China only recently admitted that it's facing an HIV/AIDS crisis, and the United Nations estimates that 800,000 to 1.5 million Chinese were infected by the end of 2001. The number could explode to 10 million by 2010, the U.N. has warned, if the country does not act quickly to fight the epidemic.

New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/08/international/asia/08CHIN.html?ex=1069307684&ei=1&en=f1a0d14a8b5654ea

November 8, 2003

2
China Begins Giving Free H.I.V./AIDS Drugs to the Poor

by Jim Yardley, Beijing
The Chinese government has started providing free treatment for poor people with H.I.V. and AIDS and plans to expand the program next year until every poor person who has tested positive is receiving medical help, a top Health Ministry official said in a speech this week. The speech on Thursday by Gao Qiang, the executive deputy health minister, confirmed anecdotal reports from AIDS sufferers in central China, who say health workers began handing out free anti-retroviral drugs several months ago in Henan Province, a region ravaged by AIDS. Mr. Gao's speech, released by the official New China News Agency, was hailed by Chinese and Western AIDS workers as a significant step for a country that has come under intense criticism for its earlier handling of the disease.

Even so, AIDS activists warned that China must do far more than give out medicine, and H.I.V.-positive patients in Henan cautioned that problems were already arising with the free drug program. "It's a very positive thing, but we are not yet there," said Henk Bekedam, the World Health Organization representative in Beijing. Mr. Bekedam said the free drug program was the latest example of what appears to be a new, more proactive attitude toward AIDS taken by China's senior leaders. This week, Beijing was host to one major international AIDS conference, while an AIDS meeting led by former President Bill Clinton will be held here on Monday. China also recently received a $98 million grant, largely to fight AIDS, from the Global Fund. "It's undeniable that at this very moment China has made some major steps forward in the fight against H.I.V.," said Mr. Bekedam, who heard Mr. Gao's speech. Exactly how many people have H.I.V. or AIDS in China is a matter of debate.

Beijing has been slow to discuss the problem, and its official figures tend to be lower than the estimates of health professionals. Mr. Gao, speaking at an economic forum, said China now had 840,000 people with H.I.V., a figure he attributed to a joint international survey. But some doctors in China suspect that a million people were infected in Henan Province alone after local officials promoted a blood-selling operation in the early 1990's. Chinese officials and AIDS experts estimate that 150,000 to 200,000 people have already died of AIDS in China. Mr. Gao said 80,000 people had tested positive for AIDS in China. By the end of the year, he said, 5,000 people should be getting the free medical treatment. Then, according to the New China News Agency, "the free treatment would be available for all poor H.I.V. carriers and AIDS patients next year." What is not clear is who qualifies as poor in a country where many people live on a few hundred dollars a year. Mr. Gao said the central and local governments planned to spend $850 million to improve and expand prevention and control programs in the provinces. He also said $272 million would be spent on upgrading blood-testing stations in central and western China.

"It's not a very clear definition of who are poor people," said Dr. Cheng Feng, director of the China office of Family Health International, a worldwide nonprofit organization with an emphasis on AIDS/H.I.V. prevention and care. "I'm not sure what that means." The free drug program began several months ago in Henan, where thousands of poor farmers sold their blood to make money but were unknowingly infected with H.I.V. Three H.I.V.-positive residents from Henan said in recent interviews that some people taking the free medication had shown improvement, while others had experienced intense side effects like nausea, dizziness and vomiting. Another major problem, they said, is that local health officials are not educating patients on how to use the drugs or what sort of side effects to expect. Nor are they conducting follow-up exams. As a result, many patients have stopped taking the medication. Experts say China has begun manufacturing some anti-retroviral drugs, but only ones no longer under patent.

China is negotiating with pharmaceutical companies to lower the price of newer, patented drugs, and Mr. Clinton has been working to broker a deal. The difficult job of building the necessary health care infrastructure to treat such a major AIDS problem is the immediate challenge for China. The inadequacy of its heath care system was exposed during the SARS outbreak earlier this year. But many experts and activists believe that SARS, and the lessons the government learned, is one reason that senior leaders are no longer trying to ignore the country's AIDS problem. Even so, many activists believe that China's top leaders, including President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, must make high-profile gestures, as they did during the SARS crisis, when Mr. Wen visited SARS medical workers.

"It is a very encouraging sign that China has finally come to terms with providing treatment and care to people with H.I.V./AIDS," said Chung To, whose Chi Heng Foundation helps pay educational costs of AIDS orphans in central China. "However, providing them with medicine is not the solution; it's not the end. It has to be more than that." Jing Jun, director of the Tsinghua University Center for AIDS Research and Training, which is the host for the conference with Mr. Clinton, agreed that the health infrastructure needed improvement, but he said he hoped that the promise of free medication would encourage people to undergo testing. Without the promise of free treatment, he said, many people are reluctant to endure the stigma attached to the disease. "It will encourage people to come forward for voluntary testing," he said. "Why should people come out and be tested positively and get nothing?"

EastDay.com (China)
http://english.eastday.com/epublish/gb/paper1/1092/class000100005/hwz169922. htm

November 20, 2003

3
Gay professor lecturing homosexual health in local university

by Jane Chen, Shanghai Daily news
No one ever knows how much courage and resolution Zhitong had to take before deciding to confess his gay identity and lecture the optional course "homosexual health sociology" at Fudan's medical college.

He had been keeping tight-lipped on his sexual orientation to persons of the same sex as "I hate to be stared like a monster by people around and especially by those who seek novelty in me". However, he made up his mind finally to make this step out and stood on the platform on November 7, the first class of his course, saying "For medical students, anatomical practice is important. And as a gay, I'm willing to serve as a living sample for you to study on homosexuals."

To his surprise, students in the classroom responded with a big applause to show their appreciation and understanding for his courage and responsibility. Fudan launched the nationally unprecedented homosexual course this autumn semester for postgraduate students to help untwist the poor image of the marginalized homosexuals in the country, according to Gao Yanming, a teacher with Fudan's public health college who has helped introduce the course. Describing the traditional public health subject he's engaged in as a wall, he said he is drilling a hole on the wall and let in the light of sociology.

The teachers' effort seems rewarding, as students respond positively to the new course. A student named Zhang Jie, who attended the course, wrote to Zhitong "Through communication with you, I've got a clearer picture about gays. Homosexuals remain as the weak group in the society and they deserve more understanding and care. I'm very much willing to do some things for you."

Zhitong is only one of the homosexual people in China, however. And it's not clear how many gays and lesbians live in the country, today's Oriental Morning Post said. If the rate ranges between 3 and 5 percent, as according to scientific researches, the homosexual population in China will hit 30 million. Most of them get married and live an apparently normal life under the social pressures and traditional morals. Social discrimination against their sexual attitude has led about one-third of these people to develop the idea of suicide and about one-third to have committed suicide, according to a research by Professor Zhang Beichuan with Qingdao University's medical college. His research indicated, of the homosexuals who have confessed their sexuality, more than 20 percent have been hurt by heterosexual people, while 30 percent harmed by the homosexuals. To help these people, China launched its first hotline for homosexuals in Beijing in 1997. This April, Shanghai launched its virgin homosex line with volunteer operators promoting safety sex knowledge and distribute condoms and health manuals.

Chinese Society for the Study of Sexual Minorities (CSSSM)

December 30, 2003

4
Gay Rights in China: An Update

1) Freedom of association and assembly, nominally guaranteed by law, is hardly reflected in reality . All NGOs need endorsement from the government prior to registration. So far no gay organization has successfully registered. Self organized gatherings or activities cannot get approval from the local police, as what happened in Dalian in November 2002 when local police banned a gay gathering in a resort on the ground of possible “subversive” elements involved.

2) Most gays and lesbians live in silence and are eventually pressured to enter heterosexual marriage. Research has shown that above 90% of adult gays and lesbians who have reached middle age are in heterosexual marriage.

3) Even though homosexuality has been decriminalized and depathologized in China in the past decade, there are no protective laws for gays and lesbians. A person exposed or suspected to be gay might face dismissal from job or school. Victims usually have no legal recourse to seeking protection against discrimination as such.

4) Strict control over media is still in place over gay-related publicity in the media. Homosexuality is still listed together with pornography as subjects of taboo in mass media. Consequently, the general public have strongly negative opinion toward gays and lesbians. Some gays and lesbians who have encountered blackmails do not dare to report to the police.

BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3389767.stm

13 January 2004

5
Out of the closet in China

by Yuen Chan, In Shanghai
The name is intentionally vague. Shanghai Sexual Minorities Hotline might not mean anything to most people, but those in the gay community recognise it immediately. Some nights are slow, with only a few callers. Tonight the calls come in one after another. Volunteers give out advice and information about Aids and sexually transmitted diseases. But mainly they provide counselling and support.

Steven Gu, a hotline volunteer and full-time activist, said most calls centred around relationship and marriage anxieties, and social pressure. He said gay people in China often struggled to make friends. "Actually it is easy with the internet but some people are so scared because of stories of blackmail. "Unfortunately we're not a dating service," he said, laughing. "Maybe we should start one." Another volunteer, PhD student David, dished out advice to a caller who was afraid to tell his girlfriend he was gay. "Only you can make the decision," said David, "but if there's no love you don't have to continue the relationship and get married." As China opens up, the country's urban gays are slowly coming out.

China officially struck homosexuality off the list of mental illnesses two years ago and even smaller cities now boast gay bars and meeting places. Through the internet Chinese gays now have unprecedented access to information about developments in gay rights from overseas sources. "Everyone has the right to pursue love and sex," said David. "It's a basic human right." That view is being increasingly discussed and even accepted, especially in academic circles. Standing room only In a sign that mainstream attitudes towards homosexuals are becoming more liberal, Shanghai's Fudan University, one of the country's leading universities, ran a course on homosexuality.

It was the first of its kind to be offered at a Chinese university and although only one student officially registered to take the course for credits, the lectures were packed. There was standing room only for latecomers when prominent sociologist Li Yinhe gave a lecture about homosexual sub-cultures. For many of the students, the lecture was a real eye-opener. There was a gasp when Professor Li cited a study that found 16% of Chinese male university students have had a homosexual experience. Ms Li is famous in China for her pioneering work on sexuality, and also for an attempt to get China's parliament to pass a law on same-sex marriage. "I drafted a proposal, found a delegate who submitted it to parliament," Ms Li explained, "but the delegate couldn't find the 30 people needed to get it on the agenda.

The initiative was very well received by the gay community but unfortunately their voices are very weak." Ms Li does not think China will embrace same-sex unions any time soon. But the fact she could make the proposal at all was seen as a breakthrough. Spreading the word Although homosexuality was never specifically outlawed in the People's Republic of China, it was regarded as a social disgrace. Gays were viewed as politically suspect and were persecuted under "hooliganism" laws. Those laws were scrapped in 1997, and in 2001, homosexuality was finally taken off the list of mental illnesses. The more relaxed climate has encouraged a blossoming of sorts for gay culture.

Another lecturer in the Fudan series, Washington-based writer and activist Er Yan, said that when he left for the United States 12 years ago, gay culture barely existed in China. "[We were] totally isolated, didn't know anyone," he said. "Later I found out there were cruising places in Beijing and some parks etc, but I'd never been there. I read the word 'homosexual' in the newspapers but its mention was very cursory. No reports, nothing."

As for HIV/Aids, which was already a critical issue among gay communities in other countries, Er Yan said there was almost no news about it in China. "At that time, news about Aids began to emerge in China and sometimes the word 'homosexual' would appear in relation to it," he says, "but beyond that nothing else."

Er Yan, who also runs a website featuring academic research on gay issues, said there was more coverage of gay issues in the mainstream Chinese media these days. But the internet is the channel that has really brought Chinese gays into contact with each other and with news, ideas and information. In November 2001, gay webmasters held a secret meeting in Beijing. There are now hundreds of gay websites in China and the number is growing all the time.

Gay culture may be gathering strength in China but despite the influences from the West and other Chinese communities in Hong Kong and Taiwan, Er Yan predicted any developing movement would have distinctly Chinese characteristics.

'Quiet revolution'

He said it would be quieter, and without the open activism that is common in other countries. "The US has a strong influence across the world," he said, "and the gay rights cause in the US has been at many times considered a model for other countries to follow, which some folks here really don't agree with because Chinese people are much more passive.

"If you asked them in a contemporary political environment to go onto the streets and launch a demonstration, I don't think anyone would." But while there may be a quiet revolution going on amongst gay communities in China's cities, both Er Yan and Steven stressed gays in China's vast countryside had yet to feel the benefits. Gay rights in China have come a long way, they said, but there is a lot further to go.

Gay.com UK,
http://uk.gay.com/headlines/6612

28 July 2004

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.

It has been repeatedly pinpointed as one of the global epicentres of HIV in the coming years, with a UN report suggesting as many as 10 million people could be infected by 2010. Wu said the project would help fight the spread of the infection across China and promised that "those HIV carriers found in the survey would be given treatment and care".

365Gay.com

August 9, 2004

7
China Holds First HIV Tests In A Gay Club

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.

Three physicians from Zhejiang Province will come to Howard Brown Health Centre in the middle of this month for one month of training on the latest HIV medical treatment protocols using the latest drugs.

Team India
http://www.teamindia.net/news/index.php?action=fullnews&id=44110

December 14, 2004

8
China's gay men know little about AIDS

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.

Information was largely collected from pubs, cyber cafes and other public places for the survey, conducted in Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang province. China has an estimated 8,40,000 people infected with HIV, among whom 80,000 are AIDS patients. PTI

International Herald Tribune

Friday, January 21, 2005

9
Yes, gay men are at risk for AIDS in China

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

On Dec. 1 appeared "A Joint Assessment of HIV/AIDS Prevention, Treatment and Care in China," a report by the country's State Council and the United Nations' Unaids branch. Afterward, China's state-controlled media released an unprecedented eight articles identifying China's gay population at high risk for contracting and transmitting HIV/AIDS.

Until recently, though, Chinese health authorities had literally ignored this socially marginalized population of up to 20 million when designing its national response to the disease. Its turnaround is encouraging, but possibly too late to prevent a far-reaching AIDS outbreak among the gay population.

China is estimated to have 840,000 HIV cases, with needle-sharing remaining the primary mode of transmission, accounting for 44 percent of all cases. Sexual transmission has risen to 30 percent, of which unprotected gay sex is explicitly estimated to be at 11.1 percent. China's national HIV prevalence rate remains at 0.1 percent, but new infections are increasing at an astonishing annual rate of 40 percent. Experts warn that China may have between 10 million and 15 million HIV/AIDS cases in six years, with gay men accounting for over 1.5 million of those.

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.

Several of China's gay organizations have gained valuable experience while cooperating and participating in internationally funded outreach and prevention programs. Clearly, it would be beneficial for health officials to actively support gay organizations' efforts to develop measures to distribute education and prevention materials, coordinate outreach programs and encourage voluntary testing. Such cooperation would significantly benefit China's national AIDS response, as well as strengthen the gay community's ability to sustain effective, long-term prevention and education programs.

BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/4481007.stm

April 27, 2005

10
Officials forced gay film festival off campus

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.

An event spokesman said: "If we had told them what it was about they would never have agreed to it." The event, which began at the weekend, was moved to a nearby disused factory. The spokesman said organisers believed the ban was "because of the festival's subject matter". The festival featured four Chinese feature films, two Hong Kong movies and one from Taiwan.

Agence France Presse

May, 18 2005

11
Blocked Chinese Gay website not explicit, says operator

Beijing - China has blocked a popular website devoted to providing information and support to the nation's large but closeted homosexual population, the website's manager and readers said on Wednesday.

The Chinese language website www.gaychinese.net, which sees 50 000 to 65 000 visits a day mainly from mainland Chinese, has been blocked since April 11, manager Damien Lu said. Lu said he does not know why the website, operated by volunteers in China, has been blocked as it contains no political or sexually explicit content. "We have no content that violates the Chinese government's rules," said Lu, a theatre professor at the University of California in Los Angeles. 'There are several hundred such websites in China, but this is the most important' " None of our staff have been contacted by the police."

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.

A popular feature was its question and answer forum which provided advice on how to develop relationships and interact with family members to many gays living in remote parts of China, hiding their homosexuality, with no one to turn to.
"There are several hundred such websites in China, but this is the most important," said Wan Yanhai, a well-known Aids activist whose group the Beijing AIZHIXING Institute of Health Education has a link on the website. "It's like a Xinhua news agency for gays. Many people begin to understand themselves after reading the website and many parents begin to understand their children." - Sapa-AFP

Agence France Presse

June 15, 2005

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."

Activists who try to register non-government organizations face a web of bureaucratic restrictions designed to keep government control, it added. Meanwhile, China's notorious restrictions on the Internet have hampered the delivery of urgently-needed AIDS information to high-risk groups, like homosexuals, its report said.

New York Times

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.

Even so, government is moving ahead. The number of methadone clinics is expected to reach 1,000 by 2007. This month, health officials in Beijing announced national plans to expand needle exchanges as well as broader outreach to prostitutes to encourage condom use.
" We have some results and achievements." said Chen Juemin, director of the provincial health bureau. "But it is just a first step."

Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/gay-revolution-puts-red-china-in-the-pink/2005/08/26/1124563027268.html

August 27, 2005

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.

His first love affair was at age of 17 when he and a male friend were assigned to Inner Mongolia at the start of the Cultural Revolution. One night, the two got drunk and found each other. " It was wonderful - everything happened," he said. "I felt like it was something I'd been waiting for a long time. I had no concept then of what homosexuality was - it was a period without reflection." But his friend was assigned back to the city.

After some years, Tong Ge's family found him a girl, and out of duty, he got married, producing a son within a year. The marriage settled into a tranquil, sexless relationship - as with many heterosexual couples, he observes - that he values for its its companionship. To this day, his wife and son (now a young man) do not know he is homosexual. In his home under his real name, he is an academic engaged in research on homosexuals and HIV/AIDS. On a circuit of seminars and gay community meetings, he is Tong Ge, the famous author. " I don't want them to know even when I die," he said. "Because I have made a fantastic dream for my family. No matter what, from the understanding of my wife and my son, I am a good husband and a good father. If we say that life requires us to to play a certain role, I want to play that role."

Probably 80 per cent of Chinese homosexuals still enter heterosexual marriages to keep their families happy, researchers believe. And for all the advances Tong Ge has experienced, he can't envisage full equal rights for homosexuals and lesbians happening in his own lifetime. " China is a land covered by the ice of bureaucracy, tradition and ethics," he said, adding with a wry smile: "We comrades can only try to melt the frozen land with our body warmth."

China Daily
http://www.asianewsnet.net/level3_template1.php?l3sec=9&news_id=45089

September 7, 2005

15
Gays live a difficult life under social bias

by Raymond Zhou
The Dongdan Park in downtown Beijing is reportedly a gathering venue for gays in the city.Gu Du was the victim of extortion. He was blackmailed, as well as being chastised by his employer and almost fired. The reason: Gu is gay.

Gu worked in machine design for a Chengdu company. His father used to be head of this State-owned enterprise and his mother works in the trade union of the same company. He shared a company dormitory room with a few co-workers and surfed the Internet on his own computer after work. One night about six months ago, he was spotted browsing a gay website by his roommate co-worker. Confronted by him, he initially denied he was gay. But his roommate knew better.

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.

Family pressure
Last November, government agencies published a report that put the number of gay men in China who are "of a sexually active age" at 5-10 million. Scientists say this is the low end of the estimate. They figure that there are around 30-40 million homosexual men and women in total.

In 1997, China's Criminal Law decriminalised sodomy. In 2001, homosexuality was removed from the list of mental disorders by health authorities.

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.

There are occasional reports of parents who acquiesce or look the other way. Some are well-informed enough to know that their gay children do not have any "disease," they are just different from the majority. Others can accept it as long as their gay children are happy. But insiders suggest that these 'Wedding Banquet' scenarios are few and far between.The pitfall of marriage The film 'Wedding Banquet', directed by Ang Lee, portrays a gay son who is coerced into marriage. This is the fate of 80-90 per cent of gays in China, according to research.

Traditionally, the Chinese did not frown upon homosexuality as much as those in Christian countries in the West. In some dynasties such as Han, it was viewed almost as a "chic lifestyle."On the other hand, the Chinese place a tremendous emphasis on "carrying on the family line." If a man remains unmarried at the age of 30, his parents fret and nag and devote a significant amount of time to finding a spouse for him."What can I do? If I don't marry, I will break my parents' hearts. If I do marry, I'll ruin the life of an innocent girl," lamented Lu Youni, the Guangzhou teacher, who was, in the end, dragged into matrimony.

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."

Cai did not deny that gays also have responsibilities and should refrain from unsafe practices no matter what. But he cautioned against the fallacy that homosexuality somehow equals AIDS or sexual diseases. "Metaphorically sweeping homosexuals under the rug or throwing mud at them won't solve the problem. Rather, it will exacerbate the problem," he warned.

New trends
Another hazard of shaming gays back into the closet is the emergence of "gay for pay", or "money boys" who are not really gay but offer sexual services for money and are often involved in extortion schemes.These people take advantage of gay people's fears that their true identity will be uncovered. As a consequence, robberies and even murders have been reported. According to Zhang Beichuan, a Qingdao-based expert on the issue, 38 per cent of gays have been hurt because of their sexual encounters; 21.3 per cent have been hurt by straight lovers and 21 per cent have been victimised when their identity was exposed, suffering insults, beatings or blackmail.

For all the negative news, life for gays in China has improved on the whole.

The Internet plays a big part. Gays used to believe they were the only ones in the world who were different, and now they can turn to online communities for help, to socialise, and date. Many love stories have been posted on the Net, and many people find that homosexual love can be just as romantic, passionate or heart-breaking as a heterosexual affair.

Gay bars have sprung up all over the metropolitan landscape. Here people can mingle in a normal setting, away from sleazy bathrooms and dirty public toilets where they are putting their health at risk. But "money boys" often mar the scene instead.

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.

Meanwhile, Gu Du has not given up hope of his parents' acceptance. But each time he calls them, they hang up. He should probably send them a book by Li Yinhe, China's top expert on homosexuality, or words by Wang Xiaobo, Li's late husband who was himself a renowned social commentator:"Any sexual relationship that is long-term, stable and built on love should be respected. Gays should take a positive attitude towards life."

New York Times

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.

" This is a very sensitive issue among homosexuals, thinking that outsiders are equating them with AIDS," said Gao Yanning, a professor in the school of public health at Fudan University, whose course on homosexual life for the medical school was a precursor of the new undergraduate class. "But we, the professors, have been very careful about this. When I was first thinking of a course called the theory and practice of homosexuality, I was approached by another professor who told me I should call the class 'Homosexuality and AIDS.' "

Mr. Gao said he would have refused to teach the class if he had been forced to use such a name. Many gay and lesbian Chinese say that it is social conservatism more than the government, whose policies during the Communist era have veered from repressive to prudish, that has discouraged gay people from publicly acknowledging their sexual orientation. Chinese are hard pressed to name a single celebrity or notable person from their country who has lived an openly gay life, meaning that except for foreigners, young gay men and lesbians have no prominent role models. Explicitly gay literature or cinema and television roles are equally scarce.

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."

Many others, however, said the issue of marriage continued to weigh heavily. " If you tell your parents you have a boyfriend, that may be O.K., but you've still got to get married," said Wang Xieyu, a junior at Fudan University. "The parents have their own concerns, their friends and their reputations. China today is like the U.S. in the 1960's, but we are changing faster. What took 40 years in the States may only take 10 years in China."

From: info@utopia-asia.com
http://www.utopia-asia.com/unews/pr050923.htm

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.

The earliest historical records of homosexuality in China date back to the Shang Dynasty (1,700 B.C.) and China's long literary
tradition offers many elegant references to socially accepted gay relationships among the ruling elite. However, the lives and loves of common folk and women were rarely valued highly enough to be put into song, verse, or scholarly library, and so this guidebook is also an important historical documentation of an overlooked sub-culture as it emerges from the shadows.

The Utopia Guide to China offers a remarkable insider's glimpse at the everyday gay and lesbian lifestyle currently enjoyed by
millions of queer comrades. The book is available for sale now in printed and electronic form at www.lulu.com/content/150561 and will be available in bookstores internationally and on popular online book retailers in October.

A pioneer on the Internet, Utopia has been Asia's most popular resource for gays and lesbians since 1994. Utopia's website is
located at www.utopia-asia.com and more information about Utopia may be found at www.utopia-asia.com/utopiais.htm

Number of Pages: 160
Photographs: 26 black and white, 4 color
Price: US$21.99
ISBN: 1-4116-4185-X
Publisher: Utopia-Asia.com
Date of Publication: August, 2005
Format: 6" X 9" softcover

"These fun pages dish out the spice on even the most buttoned-up
spots in Asia." -- TIME Magazine TIME Traveler

" A really good place to start looking for information... excellent
coverage of gay and lesbian events and activities across Asia." --
Lonely Planet

Reuters AlertNet
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/HRW/bd66d4b6809872c96abe6616fba0d718.htm
Source: Human Rights Watch

19 December 2005

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.

Nongovernmental organizations serving and advocating for people living with HIV/AIDS have been harassed, hampered or forced to close. As many as hundreds of thousands of rural villagers in Henan province may have been infected through faulty blood collection practices in government-backed clinics. In Henan, young activists who started an AIDS orphanage have been beaten and jailed, and many people living with HIV/AIDS who have sought medical care or assistance for their children have been harassed and incarcerated.

Human Rights Watch News and Beijing Weekend/China Daily

December 24, 2005

19
Gay festival cancelled

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.

Cui's opinions are well echoed by Li Yinhe, arguably China's most renowned sexologist. In her opening speech that was pasted on the festival's website, she pointed out that homosexuality is one of the basic behavioural modes existing in various civilizations throughout the world's history, no matter whether in a highly-developed industrialized society or primitive tribes. " Homosexual people should be entitled to the same rights as any citizen of the People's Republic of China to freely choose their sexual partner and to get married, which, instead of being deprived and discriminated against, should receive protection. I believe that the successful presentation of a homosexuality festival will help promote public awareness of homosexuality as well as self understanding among the homosexual people themselves, and the prosperous development of homosexuality as a sub-culture in China," Li wrote at the end of her speech. " As for the festival? Surely we will have a second one next year and a bigger one, possibly throughout the country," said an optimistic Cui.

China Daily
http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2005/12/chinese_gays_th.htmlChina Daily

December 26, 2005

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

Today's edition of China Daily -- a national English-language newspaper with a 200,000 circulation published in Beijing, and aimed primarily at the foreign business community -- carries a long article on China's gay and lesbian population, "The Dark Before the Dawn," which portrays some of their tiny first steps toward openness. The article, reprinted from the Beijing Review, while it contains interesting interviews, omits any reports on recent government crackdowns on gay people -- there is, remember, no free press in China -- and so must be taken with a grain of salt.

Here are excerpts, with my notes on some of those omissions:
" 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. 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. [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.

For an extensive article by two Chinese scholars on the rapid spread of HIV-AIDS in China, in the Nov.-Dec. 2005 scholarly journal Cell Research. Also see. A History of Gay Life in China over 2,000 years by Hong Kong's pioneering gay activist Samshasha.

Beijing Review

December 26, 2005

21
Chinese Gays: The Dark Before the Dawn (Quiet pink revolution in dark before dawn?) (full article)

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