Gays gain legal ground in China, fighting for their rights in court
GUANGZHOU, China – Peng Yanhui said he shuddered when he testified three years ago about doctors using electroshock therapy to try to change his sexual orientation. “I was very nervous,” Peng said. “I screamed so loud when they poked my arm with an electric shock (device).” Peng, founder of LGBT Rights Advocacy in this southern Chinese city, had gone undercover and sought out the bogus treatment to gather evidence that doctors were falsely advertising a “cure” for homosexuality on the Internet. His lawsuit in 2014 alleged that health clinics defrauded consumers, arguing that homosexuality had been removed from China’s official registry of mental disorders in 2001. He won the case. Since then, more gays and lesbians in China have felt emboldened to come out of the closet and head to court to stand up for themselves in this conservative society, the world’s most populous nation. In September, a gay husband was awarded damages and an apology from a mental institution that colluded with his estranged wife to lock him up for treatment for 19 days. This summer, a homosexual food safety technician won an appeal against an employer who suspended him after he tested HIV-positive. A judge ruled last spring that a transgender man was unlawfully fired simply because he refused to dress like a woman at work. “What we want is to thrust our issues into the court of public opinion,” Peng said. China has no law to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation. Even so, some have successfully filed lawsuits against unfair treatment based on statutes governing employment, consumer protection and other issues. Human Rights Watch issued a report this month calling on China to outlaw conversion therapy on gay people at public hospitals and private clinics. Even as China’s civil society has seen more crackdowns in recent years, LGBT communities have flourished online and largely under the radar. They organize through Sina Weibo, China’s microblogging service, which is similar to Twitter, and hold weekly live video chats to gain followers. Marking its first decade in Chinese society, PFLAG China, a Guangzhoubased organization that is not affiliated with its American namesake, boasts 52 chapters across the country, including some smaller cities. Other groups are active. Beijing’s LGBT Center raises its profile and donations by holding monthly fundraisers at restaurants and bars. On the weekend before Halloween, it threw a costume party at a downtown pub. In the courtroom, they win some and lose some. In April last year, a gay couple sued but failed to obtain a marriage license. Two months later, a 21-year-old lesbian journalism student took the Ministry of Education to court for approving inaccurate descriptions of homosexuality in university textbooks but lost. The high-profile cases have attracted domestic and international media attention. “It is less about winning but more about increasing visibility and building identity for the movement,” said Hong Tao, a University of Paris doctoral candidate who has studied the LGBT movement in China. “Visibility is very important for LGBT in China because this is the only way we can beat the censorship regime,” Peng said. Such recognition is becoming more critical after Beijing announced regulations in June that would scrub China’s websites clear of what the government considers malcontents, including any depiction of same-sex relationships. As China’s LGBT advocates push forth with more lawsuits to keep their fight in the limelight, they debate the best tactics to tackle the new rules. “Some want to be more in your face, but others prefer to sit back and be a bit moderate,” Peng said. “All this only makes us a broader movement.”