A Chinese girl adds her signature to a banner in support of same-sex marriage in Beijing on March 23. As the Beijing Olympics draw near, gay groups in China are ramping up their activist work in hopes of attracting international attention to their cause. (Photo by Andy Wong/AP)
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CHRIS JOHNSON
Friday, April 04, 2008
Gay activists in China are hoping to use the international attention from this summer’s Olympic Games in Beijing to showcase their fight for greater acceptance.
One such effort from a gay group involves a Beijing exhibition displaying 10,000 petition signatures from Chinese citizens who support the legal recognition of same-sex marriage. The signatures are written in Chinese characters on brightly colored banners and notebooks and are showcased prominently in an exhibition room.
Bin Xu, a lesbian and head of the Chinese gay advocacy group known as Common Language, said her organization staged the exhibition with other groups in China.
“These signatures visibly demonstrate that love and commitment are values we all share and it is our hope the government will legally recognize same-sex couples,” she said in a phone interview with the Blade from China.
The display made its debut March 23 at a newly opened gay community center in Beijing. Xu called the center “the first of its kind in China” and said the center was opened to the public on the same day that Common Language launched its signature campaign.
Gay organizations collected the signatures in large Chinese cities like Beijing and Shanghai. More than 100 domestic and foreign visitors have seen the exhibit. Visitors have included gay activists, scholars, journalists and “a consortium of supportive lawyers,” Xu said.
A closing date for the exhibition has not been set but the signatures will be on display for at least a month. Gay activists chose this time to create the display because the Olympics are giving China heightened international attention.
The exhibition of signatures is not the only effort that Common Language has undertaken to bring attention to its cause. On Feb. 14, (Valentine’s Day), gay community organizers offered roses to passersby on Beijing streets and wished people success in love and relationships. The advocates also asked people to support legal recognition of same-sex marriage.
“Valentine’s Day we think is a good date to really demonstrate the love between same-sex couples and also to ask for support from the general public,” Xu said.
The activist said that members of the gay community have only recently been giving “a stronger voice” in efforts to gain more rights. Gay people previously had mostly showed their support for initiatives on the Internet, she said.
Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, said people living in China don’t enjoy free speech as it would be understood in the United States and said “there’s a lot of temperature taking” when the Chinese people decide whether or not to express their opinions.
“There are times when the climate is calmer … and people can write those kinds of petitions are have those kinds of public gatherings, and there are other times when they really can’t,” she said.
Richardson said Common Language and other gay groups are being “very brave” by conducting demonstrations as major events approach like the Olympics and the meeting of the National People’s Congress. She said at these times the Chinese government is less willing to look the other way for dissidents.
China has recently endured increased condemnation from the international community for its human rights abuses, especially for its crackdown on protesters in Tibet. The number of deaths resulting from those protests and reports on the severity of the government crackdown that followed vary among sources and news outlets but Chinese state-controlled media pegs the number at around 20, while the Tibet’s government-in-exile says hundreds have been killed and thousands injured.
As a result, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced last month that she would boycott the Olympics’ opening ceremony. French President Nicholas Sarkozy said later that he’s considering not attending. Some U.S. lawmakers are urging President Bush to boycott the ceremony, but he plans to attend.
Xu said she is “a little bit” concerned about a hostile reaction from the Chinese government in response to the exhibition. She said her group has not yet encountered hostility, but she recalled a time in 2005 when a gay and lesbian culture festival was shutdown by Beijing police. Common Language “did have a lot of concern [that] police would come and crack down” on the exhibition, she said.
Xu said she does not expect that these efforts will result in the Chinese government approving same-sex marriage this year. The efforts are geared more toward educating the public about concerns from the gay community, she said.
Xu said the treatment of the gay community in China is “very different” from some countries in the West. She said the public’s attitude is “not too hostile, but not friendly either.”
Richardson said the gay community in China is still “a fairly marginalized community.”
“I think it’s fair to say that there is still quite a bit of stigma attached to being gay,” she said.
Richardson said gays in China enjoy a degree of safety if they live in urban areas where there are established gay communities, but there are exceptions.
“When the authorities decide they don’t like some group or some kind of activity, there’s no hesitation about cracking down on it,” she said.
Laws prohibiting same-sex sexual activity in China were taken off the books in 1997. China’s medical community eliminated homosexuality as a mental disease in 2001.
The State Department’s annual report on human rights violations, released March 11, includes information on hostility toward gays overseas and states that “societal discrimination and strong pressure to conform to family expectations” in China deters gays from publicly discussing their sexual orientation.
A close-up shot of the petition banner gay activists have put on display in Beijing. (Photo courtesy of Common Language) |
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“Published reports state that more than 80 percent of gay men married because of societal pressure,” the report states.
Xu said Christian forces that condemn homosexuality in the United States have little influence in China because Christianity has not taken root there. She said some people are uncomfortable with homosexuality because they adhere to “traditional values.”
While Xu and her group work toward greater acceptance for gays in China, there is also evidence that Beijing police are becoming hostile toward the community.
An e-mail distributed by the Center for Gay and Lesbian Studies’ International Resource Network at the City University of New York details various incidents of Beijing police harassing the gay community.
Among the findings:
- In January, police visited the residence of a gay activist and asked about her residence permit and her job. They also asked for a picture.
- On March 21, the day before there was a news announcement about the petition signature exhibition, police went to the home of a gay activist and asked about her job and a gay web site.
- On March 9, the police visited a popular gay club in Beijing called Destination. The police said the club was overcrowded, and access to the club was restricted and the music stopped. The club was shut down and resumed business a few days later.
- On March 17, police went to Dongdan Park and apprehended more than 40 gay men for interrogation at the police station. Officers instructed the men to write their names on white paper and hold the paper up to their chest while they were photographed. Some men refused to be photographed and were taken to another police station for further questioning. The police later said a person had been killed in the park on the previous day and that officers needed to interrogate people as part of the investigation. However, the police did not ask any of the individuals who were interrogated about the criminal case.
- On March 20, more than 10 police cars came to a gay bathhouse in Beijing called Oasis. More than 70 people, including all the members of the staff, were apprehended. Police arrested the staff at another Beijing bathhouse on the following day. Both bathhouses remain closed.
The Chinese embassy did not return calls seeking comment.
Xu said she is unsure about whether or not there is a connection between recent police hostility and the signature exhibition. She noted that the hostility seems focused more on a recent crackdown on “sex workers” as opposed to gay activists in the area.
“I don’t think the recent crackdown of some gay public places is specially targeted toward LGBT people in general, I think they target towards some gay men’s public parks,” she said.
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