Dragging China out of the closet
Gay rights activists may be closer to equality in China after a lawsuit challenged biased Ministry of Education materials.
Before she became enmeshed in a potentially groundbreaking lawsuit against the Chinese government, Chen Qiuyan was an ordinary college student struggling to come to terms with her sexuality.
Early this year, the 20-year-old third-year college student was beginning to realize she was a lesbian — her male classmates at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou didn’t interest her, but a female classmate did — and she sought guidance in the school library.
Many of the textbooks she pulled from the shelves described homosexuality as an illness. Some even recommended electroshock therapy as a “cure.” She sent a letter to provincial education officials seeking an explanation. By law, they were required to reply within 15 days. When they didn’t, she decided to sue.
To her surprise, a Beijing court approved the lawsuit, and last week, Chen — who also goes by the pseudonym Qiu Bai — came face to face with Ministry of Education officials in court to make her case.
“I’m a bit happy because I’ve waited so long to have a proper dialogue with the Ministry of Education, and today we got to discuss these issues in person,” Chen said over lunch near the Beijing courthouse. “I think that’s an important step. But I’m a bit disappointed, because when we finally saw each other, there were many issues I asked them to resolve, and yet they gave me very unclear answers.”
Although social mores in China have relaxed in recent decades — the country stopped classifying homosexuality as a psychological disorder in 2001 — many Chinese still consider homosexuality taboo.
The court’s decision to hear Chen’s case represents a “modest” step forward for gay rights in China amid an increasingly hostile environment for grassroots activism, said Maya Wang, a Hong Kong-based researcher for Human Rights Watch.
“Chinese law does prohibit discrimination, but it doesn’t give a precise definition of what that means,” Wang explained. “So (Chen) is suing the Ministry of Education on a technical point . . . but not on the greater point of discrimination.”
Chen says that although the government has not pressured her to drop the case, her activism has strained her family life. Soon after she filed the lawsuit, an anxious university guidance counsellor told her parents, disclosing her sexuality without consent.
“They were totally caught off-guard,” Chen said. “They were very sad and depressed. They even took me to see doctors and then test my hormones and my psychological state.”
Yet Chen remains hopeful. During her lunch with a reporter she received a text from her lawyer, Wang Zhenyu, congratulating her on the hearing.
“I think the biggest success of this case is that the Ministry of Education representatives said they’ve seen media reports (about the case), and they’ve studied this issue,” he wrote. “Paying attention is the first step to change. Your action caused the Ministry of Education to pay attention. This is a great achievement.”