Athena Luo

Professor Dustin Hannum

Feeling Good: Empathy and Ethics

April 10, 2022

Sexual Minority in Modern China

Four years ago, an announcement made by China’s most popular social media platform,

Weibo, declared that posts that include sex-related content, violence, and LGBTQ-related

content would be removed from the platform to create a harmonious network environment for

the Chinese netizens (Weibo). However, after this announcement was made, furious LGBTQ

netizens mainly created a hashtag named #hi weibo, I’m gay (LGBTQ), and #I’m illegal,

repelling Weibo’s homophobic announcement. They believe Weibo’s crude categorization

revealed the false belief of most Chinese people that LGBTQ is equal to sex and violence, which

are contents that are inappropriate, immoral, and indecent. Some other people supported this

announcement, for they believe LGBTQ culture was brought to China by the western world to

create a toxic environment where men are no longer masculine or ambitious, and women are no

longer interested in marriage or housekeeping; some even believed it was the western evil plan to

brainwash Chinese citizens to lower the fertility rate. The voice of the latter group was indeed

revealing the homophobic beliefs these Chinese held. This homophobic belief is even supported

by the current Chinese policy, for gay marriage isn’t seen as legal nor formal marriage according

to the second article of Chinese People’s Marriage Law. Two thirds of the Chinese population

are considered as homophobic. But is conformity the right thing? The fact is a cruel no. The

denial and avoidance towards China’s 70,000,000 LGBTQ population is surely an inappropriate
act, for only 5% of the population are out of the closet, 70% of the gay man would marry straight

woman due to stress from the society, many young children are being bullied in schools or even

sent to conversion therapy (Talha, 389). However, on the contrary to the common sense, LGBTQ

isn’t a result of westernization, and shouldn’t be seen that way. Thus, the thesis of this paper is,

China should create a LGBTQ friendly environment. This would not only save the LGBTQ

population, but also generate great benefit for the entire Chinese society. The paper would first

introduce the historical background of the Chinese LGBTQs, then discuss the social problems

caused due to discrimination towards modern Chinese LGBTQs, and then use data from

countries that are more LGBTQ friendly to showcase the benefits of creating a LGBTQ-friendly

environment and how can it be realized.

Historical Backgrounds

The cause of formation behind China’s current homophobic general atmosphere needs to

be figured out first. China in fact was far more LGBTQ inclusive during the past thousands of

years, as words and literature were created specifically describing the intimacy relationship

between same gender people (MA, 117). Not until the 20th century when Christians entered

mainland China and spread the belief that homosexuality and gender dysphoria are diseases that

are forbidden, evil and morbid did the Chinese started forming hatred and discriminations

towards LGBTQs (MA, 117). And later this idea got strengthened during World War II when

China believed westernization is the only way to survive the war. During that period, DSM

(Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) still claimed homosexuality and gender

identity disorder (now known as gender dysphoria) as mental disorder, and surely made all the

Chinese psychological researchers accept this concept. Since then, the Chinese policy has been
harsh on LGBTQ (MA, 117). Thus, the false belief of the that LGBTQ is a concept the western

world came up with to brainwash the Chinese citizens according to Weibo’s official

announcement collapse without being attacked.

Results of discrimination

Discrimination towards LGBTQ population does harm to the Chinese society. The people

that are most directly harmed are the LGBTQ themselves.

The entire LGBTQ group suffers much from the discrimination mentally and physically.

Like most of the countries that used to view sexual minority as a disease, conversion therapy was

introduced to the Chinese LGBTQs. Although there’s not much official statistics collected on

conversional therapy due to its illegalness, reports and interviews of the victims can be easily

found in newspapers and journals. “Treatment” such as electric shocks, acupuncture, or use of

medicine are used against the LGBTQs. For example, in a 2005s book written by neurologist Lu

Long Guang from Nanjing Medical university, apomorphine, which is a drug that would induce

vomiting is used while homosexual images are shown to the “patients” and was recommended to

many conversion therapy clinics (Bao). These illegal and immoral treatments weren’t considered

as crime until the first winning case by a victim of electric shock therapy in Beijing, 2014, which

is a total 13 years after homosexuality was removed from CCMD (China Classification of

Mental Disease) (Gao). Though medically being sexual minority isn’t considered as a disease

anymore, discrimination towards LGBTQ still exists. The people who claim to be LGBTQ are

40% less likely to be employed by the company with similar working experiences and

backgrounds, around 20% of the LGBTQs are discriminated, bullied, getting fired from the

workplace, causing the LGBTQ members to suffer a higher rate of unemployment (Longario, 5).
 Also, the discrimination would lead to a vicious cycle that causes the living conditions of

the LGBTQs to worsen. People in China held the belief that being homosexual is lascivious for

deadly sexual transmitted disease would spread among these group of people, especially among

young males, such as herpes, syphilis and HIV. However, it is this belief and the avoidance to

talk about homosexual that led to the vicious cycle of HIV transmission, not the act of being

homosexual. Due to the conservative minds sets people held, sex education is never a topic to be

brought up in public, not to mention sexual behavior among same sex partners. And the lack of

education on homosexual intercourse evoked great health crisis in the Chinese society. After the

first MSM (men who have sex with men) HIV case reported in the 1900s, the rate of MSM

spread HIV/AIDS increased all along from 0.2% in 2001, to 11.1% in 2003, then 28% in the

short amount of 13 years (Zhang, 858). According to data collected by Zu Rong Liang, only by

the first three quarter of 2016, MSM experienced a surge of HIV/AIDS, accounting for 28% of

the 96,000 new diagnoses in China (Liang). High rate of illegal recreational drug use is also

found among MSMs, with a rate of 77% among the 1424 MSM who participated in PeiZhen

Zhao’s research (Zhao). Illegal recreational drug use is also a cause for the increasing HIV/AIDS

among the Chinese society, thus it’s important to educate the sexual minority group to protect

these members and the entire Chinese society (HE, 825).

The other group that would be harmed due to the discrimination are the teenage children

in high schools. According to research done by Mengsi Yang and the other researchers, school

bully toward sexual minority youth (MSY) is as high as 18.2% in all kinds of school bullying.

Bisexual youth are reported to be under the most stress, with a tendency of getting depressed at a

high rate of 40.2%, anxiety at a rate of 38%, 70% higher than non-MSY high school youth

(Yang). Besides traditional physical bullying, rates of mental abuse and cyberbullying slowly
increased to 10% towards homosexual youths (Yang). The lack of education on sexuality is one

main cause of this bullying and anxiety. Students in schools have no place to seek out answers to

the questions they have for their confusion, which would only add stress to their already

struggling mental situation. Parents on the other hand, are one part of the leading cause of these

children’s’ stress as well. Although on the surface, the Chinese citizen’s attitude towards

LGBTQ is not as compelling as most anti-LGBTQ countries, the one subtle hypocritical belief of

these parents is even worse than direct discrimination: they’re only accepting the presence of

LGBTQ if there aren’t LGBTQs around in their workplace, their children not contacting, or

being LGBTQ themselves, especially in regions in the northern parts (Wang, 669). Around only

15% of the LGBTQs are coming out to their parents, and the chance of them being put into

conversion therapy by their own parents is as high as 60% (UNDP, 23). There’s no specific data

collected by the scholarly sources, but there’s a common sense among most LGBTQs in China

that coming out means being ready to break-off the parent-children relationship. How will school

kids who have no economic income feel ready to take the risk of being kicked out of the family

to talk about their confusion on their sexual identities with their parents? How will the children

be able to resolve their struggles within if they can’t get help, but would be hurt instead by the

school, the society or even their own parents?

Even more, a large population of women outside the LGBTQ community are getting

involved in this abyss due to discrimination—the gay wives. The word is also known as “Tong

Qi” in the Chinese culture. Around 70% of the gay man would marry straight women due to

either reproduction needs, stress from family or society’s stress. That is creating around

15,000,000 gay wives according to Talha’s research report (Talha, 389). The scary part isn’t

simply being deceived to marry someone who only wanted the womb to reproduce, in fact,
domestic violence is another severe common crime these gay wives would suffer throughout

their entire lives. Statistics collected by Chinese researcher Yuan Yuan Wang revealed an

intuitionistic living condition of these gay wives: more than 33% of the gay wives suffered at

least one time of physical or mental abuse from their gay husband, and 90% of those who were

abused are diagnosed as major depression (Wang). What’s more, at least 60% of them claimed to

have suicidal thoughts, and around 10% of them attempted suicide at lease once (Wang). These

were only statistics collected from the reported cases or questionnaires, the number of victims

would only be more than this number. And all these disastrous harm to the people of this land are

the result of discrimination towards the LGBTQ in China. To save the LGBTQs, the MSY youth

and the gay wives from the land of China, creating a LGBTQ friendly environment, enhancing

comprehensive sex education and legalizing same sex marriage are the solutions to this

predicament.

LGBTQ friendly environment and counterarguments

In order to create a more LGBTQ friendly environment, policies of legalizing same sex

marriage and anti-discrimination should be imposed, and comprehensive sex education should be

introduced to schools.

The popular counterargument raised among the researchers in China that votes against

legalization of same sex marriage is it would lead to the decrease of societal birth rate. Proposed

by the Professor Cheng Hua Li of Dean of law School, Yangtze University, claimed that

legalization of same sex marriage would lead to reduce of birth rate, without citing any credible

sources supporting his hollow thesis (CCPPC Daily). The real reason behind the drop of birth

rate is not correlated to the increase of LGBTQ in the Chinese society, but due to the fluctuation
in the country’s economy, the increase of women in workplace, and increase of average degree

among Chinese students in the society (Marois, 118).

By legalizing same sex marriage, the stigma and social pressure from the society pushing

gay men to marry a straight women would surely decrease, reducing the chance of gay wives

getting involved into formality marriage, getting mentally or physically abused (Wang). Besides

saving the potential gay wives, data collected revealed that after same sex marriage is legalized,

the US high school student suicidal rate dropped by 7% within only a year’s time (Raifman). By

introducing comprehensive sex education, MSMs would surely have a lower rate of STI and

HIV, and MSYs would have a better understanding towards the struggles they have towards

themselves.

What’s more, the positive outcome of creating a LGBTQ friendly environment is that the

benefits would not only improve the life qualities of the LGBTQs but would also boost the life

qualities of the rest of the societal members. According to Global Index on Legal Recognition on

Homosexual Orientation (GILRHO), increasing of one index in the GILRHO would promote the

GDP per capita by $2000. (Badgett, 1) Legalizing same sex marriage, being one part of the

GILRHO index, has boosted a $3.8 million in the US economy since the Obergefell decision that

legalized same sex marriage, and created 45,000 job opportunities (Mallory, 1). And a LGBTQ

friendly environment would increase both the productivity of the LGBTQ members by 60%, and

the diversity, collaboration and efficiency of the entire working group according to Professor

Zhang Letian at the business school of Harvard University (ZHANG).

Furthermore, it could even increase the rate of adoption. According to statistics collected

on the US LGBT adoption on Foster and Adoption Law’s website, more than 16,000 same sex

parents are adopting at least one child, with an estimation of adoption of overall 22,000 children,
four times higher than hetero-sex parents. Some may point out that LGBTQ couples have a high

rate of divorce which would lead to the unhappiness of the children, however, is a misbelief. The

chance of LGBTQ couples getting divorced, is only 1% each year, comparing to 2% of straight

couples divorcing each year according to William Institute at the University of California

(William Institute). Stigma people held towards homosexual parents are totally on contrary to the

reality.

These same positive outcomes could also be realized in China if China legalizes same sex

marriage. The general increasing tendency of LGBTQ discrimination appears mostly in less

richer parts in China (Wang). GDP per capita is found to be correlated to the discrimination

towards LGBTQs (Wang). If LGBTQ is being equally treated, less discriminated in these areas,

the economy in these areas would surly increase accordingly as the theory of professor Zhang

Letian suggested. Thus, to conclude, LGBTQ should no longer be a banned topic in the Chinese

society but should be an openly discussed topic. It’s not a result of westernization, brainwash or

lack of responsibility. By embracing the LGBTQ population by legalizing same sex marriage,

comprehensive sex education, the Chinese society would surely be a better one, with the positive

outcome of less discriminated painful LGBTQ members, more healthy, cheerful and wealthy

Chinese people instead.

 Work Cited

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Guillaume, Marois, “China’s low fertility may not hinder future prosperity”. Sep 2021, pp 118,

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