Shanghai to show pride with gay festival

Shanghai to show pride with gay festival

news.bbc.co.uk

Although China is a very conservative society, surveys suggest the majority of the population are reasonably tolerant of gay people.

However, there is intense pressure on young Chinese to get married, so it can be difficult for gay Chinese to be open about their sexuality.

The state-run English newspaper, the China Daily, has in the past suggested that official statistics estimate the number of gay men and women in mainland China to be around 30 million, or just under 3% of the population. It admitted, though, that few are willing to acknowledge their sexuality.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Wonders never cease I suppose. This is good news for the G/L/T community in China.

I wonder how close that 3% is actually. I have heard in the past that g/l/t make up 10% of the population. Tho that may have been inflated.

I see this as good news. Perhaps more tolerance in the people of China than I had previously thought. Well at least they wont be arrested now.

news.bbc.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

Wonderful news for the chinese.

It's about time they open their eyes an allow a little bit of diversity within the mainstream. This should fair well so long as biggots don't line the streets to protest it.

~Keeper

The ulterior motive is obviously to push gay acceptance as part of efforts to maintain order. They have 32 million men who will be unable to find a Chinese bride, and that's if every Chinese woman married a Chinese man.

There's a great article at the Wall Street Journal's site on the skyrocketing price of a dowry (now up into the $5000-$10,000 range, the savings of many years of farm labor) and the increasingly common scam brides who show up in some rural village, go through the whole getting married thing, and like a week later take the money and run.

[edit on 6-6-2009 by 11andrew34]

Again? Will they stop at nothing to violate the chaste minds of God-fearing people everywhere?

Of course, I'm not serious. It's a pity we have quite a few peers on ATS who would find that to be a perfectly accurate depiction of the situation. It actually hurt my fingers a bit to type that out...anyway, good for China and the organisers. Here's to hoping they succeed in spreading a bit of tolerance and understanding in the world .

so, the Chinese government is becoming more open, and starting to allow freedoms

and the USA govt is becoming more closed, and is restricting freedoms

how, backwards yet surreal


what a planet

reply to post by 11andrew34

It doesn't help that China is so openly racist and xenophobic. They have really set themselves up for a fall by allowing sex-selection abortions, where do you think all that pent up sexual frustration will go? The high AIDS rate there won;t be much of a deterrent either.

Originally posted by secretagent woooman

Abortions and in-utero sex screening would be a lot more than many rural Chinese people could afford and/or would bother with. Sad to say but a lot of those girls probably went out with a nail through the head or a bucket of water or something like that after they were born. Today's dowry prices are changing their luck though. Time will tell if China can ride it out.

In that post, I didn't say either way that promoting gay acceptance is a good thing or bad thing for China or for anyone else. I'm just saying I don't see the leadership as being sentimental types. It seems like a practical, situational thing to me, and if the situation changed, then the luck of gay people in China would change.

And I don't blame them for trying to hold their country together. But I also don't think that heterosexual males can be fooled into being gay to any significant degree that would change the long term result. And I believe that ultimately, the way to hold a country together is just leadership and sound planning.

edit: heck it's the other way around, lots of gay dudes want to get married and have children that are biologically theirs.

[edit on 6-6-2009 by 11andrew34]