WP4: LGBT Rights in China
“Memory” by Aimee Herman conveys the disorienting experience of being caught in a moment of uncertainty, which is between exam and diagnosis, pleasure and pain, pride and shame, affirmation and condemnation of free sexuality. This condition is produced by the simultaneous fear of disease and the fear of stigma and judgment. Although all sexuality is subject to societal restrictions, queer sexuality is especially stigmatized as unnatural or harmful. The stigma against free sexual expression regardless of gender is especially strong with regards to HIV. Even though the disease is highly treatable nowadays, many queer people in China suffer from it in silence because of the lack of proper sexual education, the widespread homophobia, and the irrational fear of HIV.
Sex education in China is largely insufficient to prepare young people to have a healthy relationship to their sexuality. Many topics that deal with individual happiness or pleasure are still stigmatized in China’s collectivist society, with being sex at the top of that list. According to a survey from 2014 by the China Family Planning Association, 80% of parents felt incapable of speaking with their children openly about sexual and reproductive health (2019). This shocking statistic arises from Chinese culture’s respect of propriety: any subject that can be considered risqué or shameful remains out of bounds. Even when if they want to, parents feel underequipped to have conversations about gender and sexuality with their children because they themselves never received such an education.
The school system has also failed to remedy the situation by offering no specialized Sex Ed classes. A study by the Public Health School of Peking University shows that only 10% of nearly 20,000 university students had received any sexuality education in primary school (2019). These university students shared that the only conversations about sex happened in biology class as an introduction to the human reproductive system and in a girls-only meeting about menstruation (2019). When I have asked school administrators and teachers why there haven’t been meaningful efforts to address this situation, they claim that they’re concerned introducing sexual concepts to young children would encourage them to have sex too early. However, the lack of knowledge about protection and sexual health has instead led to unintended pregnancies that prevent students from completing their education and disrupt their lives.
The problem of insufficient education is exacerbated by social stigma against queer sexuality. China’s history with homosexuality has not always been adversarial; many traditional literary texts and diary accounts celebrate same-sex attraction and love (Blain). However, during the Cultural Revolution, and with the infusion of Western ideas of sexuality, homosexuality started to be considered abnormal, even a mental illness (Blain). Until 1997, gay men caught in sexual activities could be criminally persecuted. Even though queer sexuality is no longer considered criminal, the Confucian value of filial piety, which remained popular during the Cultural Revolution and since, demands that young people satisfy their elders by engaging in heterosexual marriages.
In recent years, although there is an expanded understanding of gender and sexuality, queer love is still frowned upon. As a result, many gay people stay in the closet or enter fake marriages with opposite-sex partners in order to pacify their relatives. Gay people who choose to remain in China and refuse to hide their identity are often subjected to violence and harassment within and outside the family (Blain). This unfair societal treatment produces guilt and shame. According to Blain, trying to be both “gay and Chinese while living in China can be seen as an impossibility, an identity crisis that cannot be reconciled.” For that reason, many queer Chinese migrate to other countries where they can freely express themselves.
Social marginalization and LGBTQIA+ stigma negatively affect the health of queer people in China. According to research by Zhang et al., the stressors associated with this stigma, such as familiar rejection, diminished opportunity, or refusal of health services lead to mental health challenges. Queer people often suffer from anxiety, depression, poverty, and addiction (Zhang et al.). These factors make queer and trans people in China highly vulnerable to a set of accompanying health conditions. Since social support and connections are a big predictor of recovery and positive health outcomes, social stigma makes it less likely that queer people would have the tools to improve their health.
Marginalization increases the chances that queer adults would contract HIV in their lifetimes. Stigma, social rejection, and health disparities make queer communities disproportionately vulnerable to the disease. In the Guangxi Autonomous region of China, men who have sex with men and trans women make up the majority of HIV cases (Zhang et al.). Social rejection and adverse mental health are often associated with excessive drug and alcohol use, and those factors make people vulnerable to infection.
A positive HIV status is the most stigmatized queer identity in China today. Research has found that a positive status makes queer people prey to many human rights abuses: blackmail, loss of employment, and healthcare denial (Zhang et al.). Societal ignorance about the spread of the disease leads many Chinese to treat HIV-positive queer people as less than human and view them with fear and suspicion. The knowledge that they will be treated as dangerous outcasts, conversely, leads HIV-positive people to avoid diagnosis, treatment, or public disclosure of status. Many who do try to seek healthcare are rejected by medical professionals and left to weather the potentially devastating effects of the disease on their own.
In Herman’s poem “Memory,” the contrast between the desire for closeness and comfort and the disappointing reality of rejection is represented in the metaphor of the watermelon hard candies. This metaphor also can stand in for the narrator’s sexuality: the narrator’s sexual experiences make them feel both liberated and ashamed, subject to the nurse’s judgment. Similarly, the condition of queer people in China places them in the horrible position between having to choose whether to live authentically and risk marginalization or avoid persecution at the cost of suppressing their true selves. Insufficient education, homophobia, and HIV stigmatization trap queer people in China in a vicious circle of abuse and marginalization. Like the danger in Herman’s poem, stigma thrives in silence. It is up to the new generation of Chinese students and activists to break this cycle of oppression and speak up for inclusion and equity.
WORKS CITED
Blain, Hayden. A History Of Homosexuality In China. 8 Oct. 2015,
theculturetrip.com/asia/china/articles/a-history-of-homosexuality-in-
china/.
“Face the Facts: Young People in China Need More from Sexuality Education.”
UNESCO Bangkok, 1 Nov. 2019, bangkok.unesco.org/content/face-facts-
young-people-china-need-more-sexuality-education.
Zhang, Chen et al. “Emotional, physical and financial burdens of stigma against
people living with HIV/AIDS in China.” AIDS care vol. 28 Suppl 1,sup1 (2016):
124–31. doi:10.1080/09540121.2016.1146206
