All eyes are on China this month for the Summer Olympics. Gays in the
Communist country must cope with demanding expectations of family and
limits on personal freedom. AP photo.
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By Laura Douglas-Brown
Friday, August 01, 2008
Editors’ note: This is the first installment of a two-part series examining gay life in China.
Twelve years ago, as the Summer Olympics prepared to open in Atlanta, elected officials and gay leaders gathered for an Olympic first: a ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the official opening of the Gay & Lesbian Visitor’s Center.
Throughout the 1996 Atlanta games, the center offered information, exhibits, concerts and theater productions where gay tourists and athletes from around the world mingled with the city’s highly visible gay and lesbian population.
Now, as the 2008 Summer Olympics open in Beijing, gay tourists and athletes are expecting a very different atmosphere in a nation where an international economy and cosmopolitan cities coexist with Communist government oversight and strict cultural traditions.
In March, outspoken AIDS activist Wan Yanhai sent an e-mail to Chinese HIV and gay Internet groups documenting six instances of alleged police raids on gay nightclubs, gathering places and bathhouses in Beijing.
Noting that a gay bathhouse in Shanghai also was shuttered, “evidence shows that this time, crackdowns are being carried out at the national level,” wrote Wan, the founder of the AIDS-related Aizhixing Institute, who has been jailed several times for criticizing the government’s response to HIV.
The report alarmed the blog Shanghaiist, which noted that “gay life in China has been enjoying pretty much unfettered development over the last decade, so it could be that we’re at a point in time when the authorities see the need to rein in the unbridled growth.
“Are the crackdowns being executed as part of a larger ‘spring cleaning exercise’ ahead of the Olympics so China would be able to project to the world its best image, whatever that means to the powers that be?” the blog asked. “Only time will tell.”
As the Olympics neared, Wan claimed that he and other human rights activists faced increased police scrutiny. But web sites for popular gay clubs in Beijing, like trendy Destination, indicated this week that they were open, and other activists said they have not experienced specific oppression.
“There has been a gradual tightening of control in and around Beijing, on all kinds of venues. It does not appear that gay venues are being singled out,” said Damien Lu, one of about 40 volunteers who run the Aibai Culture & Education Center, which operates two gay centers in China.
Lu is the only Aibai leader who does not live in China; a resident of Los Angeles, he visits China twice per year. Lu said he communicates with Wan “almost daily” and is aware of the concerns he raised about police crackdowns.
“Most LGBT people in China disagree with him on this,” he said.
Edmund Yang, one of the owners of Destination, responded to an e-mail interview request by noting, “We'll take a look at your questions before reverting to you.” Answers were not received before press time, but the club is clearly readying for an influx of visitors, posting a web site notice about “celebrating and enjoying the 2008 Beijing Olympics at the ‘bigger and better’ Destination.”
Meanwhile, concern over the conditions faced by gay citizens in China is among the factors that motivated the New York-based Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) to include the issue, along with tips for covering gay athletes, in its new Olympic Media Resource Kit.
Conflicting influences
The Olympic Games have focused unprecedented world media attention on China, where the government is anxious to shed its image as an oppressive Communist state in favor of a modern country that has become an economic superpower.
But the Games have also become a focal point for criticism of Chinese policies, from environmental pollution in major cities like Beijing to alleged human rights abuses in Tibet and other areas.
The issues faced by gay and transgender citizens deserve similar scrutiny in a country where the government controls the media and limits freedom of speech and assembly, according to GLAAD.
“By weaving gay and transgender personal stories and issues into coverage of the Olympic Games, media will play a vital role for shining a spotlight on the current state of human rights in China,” the gay watchdog group argues in its media guide.
Homosexuality was not always curtailed in China.
“Remarkably, a calm and dispassionate attitude to the homosexual phenomenon was always prevalent in ancient China,” the state-run newspaper China Daily reported in a 2004 article. “There was neither eulogy, nor criticism. It seemed to do no harm in maintaining traditional family ethics.”
The article, one of many focusing on gay issues now published by government-run media outlets, relied on research by renowned Chinese sexologist Li Yinhe in her book “History of Chinese Homosexuality.” Li, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of the Social Sciences, frequently focuses on sexuality issues and has called on the government to allow same-sex couples to marry.
Her historical research documents male homosexuality throughout the Chinese dynasties, and notes that the first Chinese law against gay sex was enacted in 1740. The Communist Party took power in 1949; during Chairman Mao Zedong’s brutal Cultural Revolution of 1966 to 1976, “homosexuals faced their worst period of persecution in Chinese history,” China Daily reports.
The last decade brought particularly rapid change. In 1997, the Chinese law against “hooliganism,” used to criminalize gay sex, was removed. In 2001, homosexuality was scrubbed from the Chinese Classification of Mental Disorders—almost three decades after the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1973.
“After 2001, everything changed,” activist Didier Zheng, host of China’s first gay series, told China Daily when his online show debuted in 2007. “Society is changing. We are paying more attention to gay man’s socialization and integration into society.”
Signs of change
As in other areas of Chinese life, gay—or “tongzhi”—citizens live in a world divided between traditional influences and rapid modernization.
Signs of increasing tolerance, if not full acceptance, are everywhere. Gay bars thrive in major cities and are becoming more common in smaller ones.
“I expected I would find an underground scene in Beijing.… What I didn't expect was how enthusiastic and healthy the scene was,” said James West, a gay Australian journalist who lived in Beijing from 2005 to 2006.
West recalled visits to Destination, Beijing’s most popular gay club, which he said “heaved every Friday and Saturday nights with boys kissing boys and girls kissing girls.”
“And while outside the doors, pink might not really go with Communist red, inside kids were making friends and community and talking identity,” West recalled.
As in the United States, the Internet is a major source for gay Chinese citizens to meet and share information. Activists say there are hundreds of gay organizations in the country, most focused on HIV activism, which may be less likely to draw scrutiny than overt political activism.
“There is a dichotomy here,” Lu said. “In recent years, the government has made a lot of effort to involve the LGBT community in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Toward that end, the health branch of the government approves of LGBT work and has good relationships with us as well. However, the propaganda and public security branches of the government are still nervous of the LGBT community.”
State-run media outlets nonetheless frequently cover gay topics, and in 2005, Fudan University in Shanghai began offering China's first undergraduate course on gay studies.
Still, progress on gay issues has been far from smooth. Gay organizations have held colorful marches in Hong Kong, which was under British rule until 1997 and is given a wide-degree of local autonomy for 50 years under the agreement that transferred control back to China. But Beijing police allegedly blocked a 2005 Lesbian & Gay Cultural Festival in the capital city, using a combination of permit and fire-code issues to diffuse the international gathering.
Family pressure
Pressures don’t come only from the government. Chinese culture places tremendous importance on loyalty to family, and gay and lesbian Chinese people face enormous pressure to marry and have children.
“The greatest oppression that Chinese LGBT people face comes from their family, as the pressure to marry and procreate is very, very strong,” Lu said. “Many young LGBT while in college, away from home, live a very open gay lifestyle, yet when they graduate, they get married.”
West saw this pressure in the lives of his gay Chinese friends.
“The gay clubs in the capital attract both foreigners and locals. But foreigners living in Beijing don't have family to answer to, and are a lot more free as a result,” he said. “We didn't have to say good-bye to our friends at 11 p.m. to go home to our mums. And we didn't have to lie really.”
Li Yinhe, the sexologist and gay rights activist, has offered a novel reason for legalizing gay marriage: With Chinese population control policies and men outnumbering women, allowing gays to marry would prevent gay men from marrying women, making more potential wives available for straight men.
Meanwhile, Lu said, more and more gay Chinese are “gathering the courage” to come out.
Progress is happening quickly, West agreed.
“Freedom for gay people in Beijing is fragile, but ever-changing,” he noted. “And there are a lot of individuals pushing against the systemic homophobia, rattling on the doors of the bamboo closet to come out.”
In the next issue: More on gay life in China, the government’s response to HIV, and the American export that one Chinese gay activist fears could hinder progress there.
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