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All eyes are on China this week as the Summer Olympics get underway. Gays in the Communist country must cope with demanding expectations of family and limits on personal freedom. (Photo by Robert F. Bukaty/AP)
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HOME > NEWS > NATIONAL NEWS
By: LAURA DOUGLAS-BROWN COMMENTS
 
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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 U.S., 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<
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