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Attendees at a 2005 gay rights rally in Hong Kong. Below: (Photo by AP)
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HOME > NEWS > WORLD
By: LAURA DOUGLAS-BROWN
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The last decade has brought dramatic change for gay men and lesbians living in China, although many obstacles remain. Gay bars now thrive in major cities, as do many gay organizations, mostly dealing with HIV/AIDS. Yet many gay Chinese people still feel intense pressure to marry and have children, and activists and even nightclubs can face government scrutiny.
1996: Shortly before transferring from British to Chinese rule, Hong Kong hosts the first International Chinese Tongzhi (Gay) Conference in December.
1997: The Chinese law against “hooliganism,” considered to cover homosexual acts, is removed from the nation’s criminal code.
1998: The first Chinese National Lesbian Conference is held in Beijing.
1998: Chi Heng Foundation is founded. Based in Hong Kong, it grows to have offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Anhui, Henan and Guangzhou. The agency focuses on HIV and gay outreach.
1999: A Chinese gay couple launches a blog to translate gay news from other countries for Chinese readers. Today, Gaychinese.net continues to provide gay news to tens of thousands of daily readers. It also evolves into the Aibai Culture & Education Centre, with gay outreach in several Chinese cities.
2001: Homosexuality is removed from the Chinese Classification of Mental Disorders.
2001: China’s first Gay Film Festival is held in Beijing.
2003: Li Yinhe, a Chinese sexologist and member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, submits a resolution to allow same-sex couples to marry in China. She will submit similar unsuccessful resolutions in 2005 and 2006.
2004: Chinese public health ministries publish research on gay men’s health for the first time. A joint study by the Chinese Ministry of Health and the UN Theme Group on HIV/AIDS finds that over 1 percent of gay men in Beijing and other major cities may be HIV-positive and condom use is low.
2004: The Chinese Ministry of Health estimates there are 5-10 million gay men in the nation. Other experts put the population much higher, at 20 million gay men and 10 million lesbians.
2005: On May 17, the first LGBT rights rally is held in Hong Kong, to mark the International Day Against Homophobia. Hong Kong was transferred to Chinese rule in 1997, but remains more open than mainland China, as provisions in the transfer grant Hong Kong much autonomy for 50 years.
2005: The first Beijing Gay & Lesbian Cultural Festival is stymied by police. The event’s first venue is nixed for allegedly being too small to support the crowd; an attempt to move it to a gay bar falls through when police close the club. A much smaller discussion is later held.
2005: Fudan University in Shanghai offers the country’s first undergraduate course on Gay & Lesbian Studies.
2005: Operated from a web server in the United States, Gaychinese.net is blocked in China. Aibai officials say they are not told of a problem by the government, and the website goes back online after moving to a Chinese site and officially registering.
2006: Chinese film censors do not allow “Brokeback Mountain” to be screened on the mainland, although the
Chinese press hails Taiwanese director Ang Lee’s Oscar award for the gay love story.
2006: The first national free gay hotline in China is launched. Sponsored by Chi Heng Foundation, it provides information on HIV, legal issues and psychological support.
2007: “Tongxing Xinglian” — “Connecting Homosexuals” — is China’s first gay series, broadcast online by Phoenix Satellite TV. The weekly one-hour show features out gay host Didier Zheng and producer Gang Gang.
2008: Activists gather 10,000 signatures from Chinese citizens in favor of allowing marriage for same-sex couples.
2008: Tongyu, a lesbian organization in Beijing, calls for a change in the Chinese Ministry of Health’s Blood Donor Health Check Requirements after lesbians and gay men are barred from giving blood to help victims of the Sichuan earthquakes.
2008: A survey by Li Yinhe shows that 91 percent of respondents believe gay people should have equal employment rights. But only 7.5 percent say they know someone who is gay. Some 40 percent think being gay is completely wrong, while 30 percent think it is somewhat wrong, and 20 percent say there is nothing wrong with being gay.
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