Homosexuality in China
The situation of homosexuality in China is quite ambiguous.
Ancient China
It’s believed that homosexuality existed long time ago in China. A notable example comes from a chengyu : yú táo duàn xiù(余桃断袖), which describes two stories of the emperors in Han dynasty and their lovers. Scholar Pan Guangdan(潘光旦) comes to a conclusion that nearly every emperors in Han dynasty had one or more same-sex partners. There are also some descriptions about lesbians in some history books. Other notable periods that homosexuality became quite popular were believed to be in Song dynasty, Ming dynasty and Qing dynasty.
PRC
After the foundation of People’s Republic of China, homosexuality went underground. Communist regime persecuted people who were homosexual, especial during the Culture Revolutionary, when lots of gay people were murdered. After the open and reform policy in 1979, communist party has been loosening its control over this issue. But the profile of homosexuality was libeled as a “moldering life style of capitalism”. Confucian morality and communist Puritanism frowned on homosexuality, which made it quite a taboo in mainland China then. The Chinese Classification and Diagnostic Criteria of Mental Disorders still listed homosexuality as a kind of mental disorder in 1994.
A noticeable change happened during the early 1990s and early 2000s, when the sodomy law was abolished, and the new Chinese Classification and Diagnostic Criteria of Mental Disorders removed homosexuality in its mental illnesses list. But the conservative authority has not mean to promote either gay issue or gay-rights in China. Although there is no explicit law against homosexuality or sodomy between adult men, there is no explicit law protect gay people not to be, like, kicked out of the company because of their sexual orientation either. And there is not a single gay-rights organization in PRC. It’s believed that the Chinese policy towards gay issue remains “Three nots”: not approve of, not disapprove of and not promote(不支持, 不反对, 不提倡). But many cases show that homosexual people still have to endure harassments from police, arrest and detain. A notable case happened in 2001, in which at least 37 gay men were detained in Guangdong province in July.
The loosing restrict over Internet has been blooming lots of gay websites in PRC, even though the police sometimes intervened, and shutdown some of these websites.
A survey showed that Chinese people are becoming more and more tolerant towards gay-issue: among the 10,792 surveyed, 48.15% were in favor, 30.9% were disapprove of, 14.46% were uncertain, and 7.26% were indifferent. But some scholars complain that the government’s attitude and nonfeasance still makes the gay people in China frustrating. Many gay men admitted to have unsafe sex, and more than 1 sex partner, which worsen the AIDS spread in China.
Hong Kong
Not start yet.
Taiwan
Not start yet.