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"Tongzhi": More than Chinese for Lesbigay

By NewsPlanet Staff
Contributed by Rachelle Austin
San Francisco
June 30, 1998

Tongzhi means more than lesbigay -- it's a word signifying Chinese gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people who are mining their heritage and looking to the future as comrades.

Chinese gays and lesbians from around the world met in San Francisco June 26 - 28 in what was billed as the first U.S. meeting of "tongzhi" -- literally in Mandarin, "comrades," but now a synonym for the community of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgendered people. The conference was organized by the San Francisco-based International Chinese Comrades Organization with the Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender Student Association of the University of California at San Francisco and numerous co- sponsoring groups to develop "a greater sense of pride in Chinese gay identity."

While many Chinese communities both in the homeland and abroad still consider homosexuality to be a disease, there is also a rich history of respect for gays and lesbians in Chinese culture.

One scholar speaking at the conference, Fang-Fu Ruan, whose area is modern sexology in mainland China, said that 10 of 11 emperors in the Han dynasty and many top scholars of that time had same-gender partners. Classical Chinese literature also recognized gay love in stories such as "Cut Sleeves" and "The Half-Bitten Peach."

Homophobia became the norm in mainland China with the incursion of Western missionaries and later the rise of the Communist government, which routinely harassed and punished gays. However, Ruan said that now gays and lesbians there are generally able to gather at bars and coffeehouses. Still, according to conference coordinator Gary Wu, "Our people in China cannot create much-needed agencies: There are no community-based HIV/AIDS organizations, PFLAG, role modeling programs for youth, or suicide prevention hotlines. Viewed by the Chinese to be a medical illness, homosexuality continues to be treated by archaic measures such as shock therapy. Being 'outed' very often means the loss of job and family and the increasing number of untreated HIV and suicide cases is an unspoken tragedy."

There has been faster progress for tongzhi elsewhere. In Taiwan, gay literature has won prizes, and films made there and in Hong Kong, such as the U.S. success "The Wedding Banquet," have enjoyed popularity, Wu said.

Workshop and lecture topics at the gathering, which considered both English and Mandarin to be its "official" languages, included History of Chinese Homosexuality, Queers in the Eyes of the Chinese Community, Tongzhi and Families, Chinese Tongzhi Activism, Safe Sex/HIV among Chinese Tongzhi, Living in America: Double Minority, Sex in Chinese Culture, Tongzhi and the Internet, Tongzhi in Chinese Cinema, Voices from Young Queers, and Contemporary Chinese Tongzhi Literature.

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