Ed Jones—AFP/Getty Images

Elsie Liao, left, and Mayu Yu kiss outside the Beijing registry office where they asked to be married, before being turned away on February 25, 2013. Though not a couple, the women sought to highlight that China doesn't recognize same-sex marriage, thus denying social benefits to the LGBT community. China’s unverified but widely reported “three no’s” policy towards homosexuality is no approval, no disapproval, and no promotion. Same-sex acts were decriminalized in 1997, and homosexuality was removed from the country’s mental illness list in 2001.

LGBT China

by Jeremy Goldkorn, David Moser
September 19, 2014

Jeremy Goldkorn

Jeremy Goldkorn is an editor and writer whose work has focused on China, and he is an Editorial Fellow with ChinaFile. He co-founded the Sinica Podcast in 2010, and was Editor-in-Chief of The China...

David Moser is an Associate Professor in the Foreign Languages Department at Beijing Capital Normal University. He holds a Master’s and a Ph.D. in Chinese Studies from the University of Michigan,...

This podcast was produced by Popup Chinese.

This week on Sinica, Jeremy Goldkorn and David Moser are joined by Fan Popo for a discussion of the way life works for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual (LGBT) community in China. For those who have not heard of him, Fan is an accomplished film-maker and social activist, best known as author of the book Happy Together, a complete record of 100 queer films, as well as the director of the China Queer Film Festival.

Recommendations

Gaysia: Adventures in the Queer East, Benjamin Law (Cleis Press, 2014)
Passions of the Cut Sleeve: Male Homosexual Tradition in China,” Bret Hinsch (University of California Press, 1990) [PDF]
Sex and Sexuality in China, Elaine Jeffreys (Routledge, 2007)
Breakfast on Pluto, directed by Neil Jordan, 2005 [trailer]

[VIMEO::https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tjsrr8I5D0]

Topics:

History, Media, Society

Keywords:

Podcast, Homosexuality, LGBT