From: rjwill6@pbsdts.sdcrc.pacbell.com (Rod Williams)
Subject: "China Easing Up on Homosexuals"
Originator: rjwill6@pbsdts.sdcrc.pacbell.com
Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Francisco
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 17:29:08 GMT


In Tuesday's (9/29/92) San Francisco Examiner, there's a
reprint of a Chicago Tribune article about a relaxation of
anti-gay laws in China...  (yoohoo, arthur hu!  paging mr. hu! :-))

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BEIJING -- The villagers in eastern Anhui province were
outraged when two local women set up house in a nation that
for years has regarded gays and lesbians as mentally ill.

The older woman "liked to play the husband with a man's
haircut and man's clothing and liked to smoke and drink," said
the Guizhou Daily.  "Her young lover believed she should be an
obedient wife and stayed at home."

Denounced by their parents, the couple were jailed for 15 days
on charges of "unruly behavior."

But in a rapidly changing China, local authorities no longer
automatically send gay men and lesbians to re-education or
labor camps.

The case made its way up to the Public Security Ministry in
Beijing, which ruled that sexual contact between the same
sexes was not listed as a crime in China's statutes and
therefore the women could not be punished.

The decision is certain to serve as a precedent in a country
where the Communist Party's standard reply to all inquiries
about homosexuality had been, "There are no gays or lesbians
in China."  Traditionally, homosexuals either are locked in
camps or certified as suffering from a mental disease.

In recent weeks, two surveys leaked to the media and
circulated on university campuses showed that the official
taboo on the subject was no longer so rigid.

Both studies note that in major cities such as Shanghai it is
rare today for police to prosecute gays or lesbians except
when children are involved.

In a six-city survey by China's foremost sexologist, Dr. Liu
Dalin, 0.5 percent urban residents and 2.31 percent of rural
people reported having had homosexual experiences.  At
universities, the figure was 8.4 percent for women and 7.5
percent for men.

Academics point out that male and female students are assigned
separate dormitories that are closely guarded to prevent
fraternization.  Unmarried sex on campus can lead to expulsion.

"Not only do homosexuals exist, but they are not as rare as we
imagined," marveled the magazine Digest after commenting on a
second survey conducted by state psychologists in eastern
Nanjing.

The Nanjing survey, the first by the state since the
Communists took power in 1949, concluded that China had a
sizable homosexual population and classified gays as normal
rather than mentally ill.

The state also found that 93 percent of the homosexuals it
interviewed had completed at least secondary school.  Many had
spent time in prison or work camps for "hooliganism," the
ubiquitous crime that officials conveniently haul out to
incarcerate gays and political dissidents.

Liu's inquiry contends that only a third of the 254 homosexuals
his 14 researchers interviewed had sex with their partners.
Among those who did, nearly 40 percent stuck to one partner.

Researchers say the lack of a sex drive among gays and lesbians
might be associated with the common Chinese credo that sexual
intercourse is for procreation rather than for pleasure.

[I'm not making this up, you know...rod]

Liu found that 85 percent of the gays and lesbians he
interviewed would not admit their sexual orientation in public.
The same percentage feel most Chinese still discriminate
against them and consider their sexual orientation to be a
crime or despicable practice.

The country's reluctant frankness on the subject may be
associated with the Health Ministry's growing concern about
AIDS, considered until two years ago a phenomenon that
flagellated the promiscuous in the outside world but not in
puritanical China.

Over the last several years, Canton and Shanghai have become
havens for gays and lesbians from Asian countries and Europe
who still feel safe from AIDS in the two cities.

Both cities are mentioned in government reports this month
that admitted, for the first time, that there were almost
1,000 "official" cases of people who had tested positive for
the AIDS-causing human immunodeficiency virus in China and
that eight people had died from AIDS.

Chinese academics involved in the fight against drugs and AIDS
say the number of HIV-infected people is at least 10,000.

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rod williams -=- pacific bell -=- san francisco -=- rjwill6@pacbell.com
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