Homosexuality And Lgbt Community, Chinese Case Vs. Spain

Homosexuality and LGBT community, Chinese case vs. Spain

Introduction

This research work starts from a personal curiosity to learn more about the way of living and relating that non -heterosexual people in China, a country known for their ancient customs, so rooted to society that take many years to be changed.

A historical vision of homosexuality in China will be offered to begin with, both legends and possible documents that can be certified as historical. Later, Chinese traditional thinking will be investigated in the face of homosexuality, and how is this view from the point of view of legacy, patriarchal system and society. Then, I will try to expose several points of view of real people who live with different sexualities today in China. Likewise, I will also try to compare China’s case with that of Spain, in order to better understand the vision that we can have towards the Asian giant. And finally, I will offer a vision of the future from everything read and accessed.

I have made a general reading about the subject of research, to get a first idea, and later I have deepened the search on the specific terms, or the moment I wanted to develop.

At the end of this investigation it is intended to offer a panoramic view of the homosexual past, and know how this issue is treated today, among Chinese older and young people. The objective is to know the current state of this issue superficially, be aware of what happens in a generalized way, and also know a little about the history of the research topic, in order to understand where Chinese thought abouthomosexuality.

At point number 2 I will describe the terminology used in the colloquial and ancient Chinese to designate people attracted by their same sex, whether gay or lesbians.

Terminology

In China, the word designated to say "homosexuality" is "tong xìng line" (同). However, there are some older terms, related to legends and stories, such as "dùanxìu zhī pǐ" (断袖 癖), which is translated by "the passion of the cut sleeve". This term comes from an ancient legend on Emperor AI, from Han dynasty, who had a lover named Dong Xian. One day, he fell asleep on the emperor’s sleeve, and he preferred to cut it rather than waking his lover.

The term "fēn táo" (分桃), or "the biting peach", refers to the legend in which Duke Ling, of the kingdom of Wei (time of the combatant kingdoms), agreed to eat a peach that had previously beenbitten by his favorite lover, Mizi Xia.

However, today these terms are not usually used, but they choose to use, in general, the word "tong zhì" (同志), which means "comrade". In female, “nǚ tong zhì” is used (女 同志). Today, both terms are used in the daily and popular language.

To designate the term "lesbian", there is the word "lā zi" (拉子), or simply "lā lā" (拉拉).

It should be noted that, unlike in most of the LGTB community in the West, the word "gay" in China is offensive most of the time, so it is better to use any of the terms mentioned above.

At the next point I will contribute a summary historical vision on how the issue of homosexuality in China was in the past.

Homosexuality in past times

Homosexuality was not considered as something impudent or uninatural, but there was no conception fully attributed to homosexuality. Keeping celibate was frowned. That did not remove that, apart from women, there would also be "concubine", which were mostly young and attractive boys.

But homosexuality was not always well treated in times past. Depending on the time, it looked more or less natural. And this was often conditioned by the emperor. If the latter had homosexual or bisexual trends, then homosexuality was well seen between society and the people. If on the contrary, the emperor had a fully heterosexual trend, homosexuality would be evil seen and would be considered anti -Natural. (Brett Hinsch, Passions of the Cut Sleeve: The Male Homosexual Tradition in China, (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990)).

In addition, he has always put an eye on the sights with the issue of female prostitution throughout history, both in China and the West. However, the fact that male prostitution also existed. Mostly young and attractive boys were respected until confucian thought began to impose itself on society. Then, they were harshly criticized and rejected, but not because they are homosexual, but for leading a life dedicated to pleasure, like women. However, female prostitution has survived despite criticism at different times of history to this day.

Lesbianism was less common and much more hidden in the eyes of society. There is classical literature that deals with lesbian themes, such as some poems of the Song dynasty. Unfortunately, women have always been more discriminated due to the patriarchal system in force in China and in the West. The woman’s obligation was to dedicate themselves to the care of children (therefore, to have them), to the work of the house, and to take care of the family. A small percentage of women in China could devote themselves to literature or art, and the large majority belonged to society’s high classes. Therefore, I think that women since childhood their thought was manipulated in such a way that it was very difficult for them to deviate from him. Because of this, I think it would be much more difficult to establish love relationships with other women than a man with another male.

Homosexuality has always been present in China, either more open or clandestine, but it has always been there because it is a natural behavior of the human being.

At the next point I will make an approach to the reader on how homosexuality seen in China is, both politically and socially, and I will contribute a summary about different real experiences.

Homosexuality today

According to the twentieth century, the vision towards homosexuality has been opening and closing at the same time. Opening, because it has been decriminalized and legalized in 1997, removed from the list of mental illnesses in 2001, and illegalized the measures that some clinics and hospitals had to "cure" homosexuality. Closing, because there is still a lot of repression towards homosexuals, and the Chinese government barely, not. There is still strong control about what is published and distributed in the new technological era, on the Internet and on television. There are numerous works that have been prohibited or manipulated so as not to show LGTBI+ content to the public. According to Li Yinhe, a scholar on the subject, “55% of the people interviewed (400) believe that they should not show homosexual theme contents on television, while 45% believe that it should."

There are still those who think, today, that homosexuality never existed in China until opening abroad in the eighties and ninety years, which is clearly wrong, just judging by the numerous works of art of past times that represent orThey imply homosexual acts and behaviors.

An example of how the theme of homosexuality in the media is prohibited is that of the movie "Brokeback Mountain", by Taiwanese director Ang Lee. This film was prohibited in continental China for "dealing with a delicate theme". But, going beyond, we realize that it was not prohibited by exactly that, but because it is a love story between two men, and that is not entirely accepted in China to openly put it to the public. They are signs that there is still much to change in Chinese thought. However, as is typical anywhere, when something is prohibited, something creates more morbid and encourages people to see it, read … etc. This film is no exception, which, the day after being released, it was already sold illegally, pirated, in the streets of the big cities (information extracted from: The Guardian newspaper: “China Praises Lee LEE MOUNTAIN BAN”. Tuesday, March 7, 2006 15.07 GMT).

All this continuous repression towards the collective comes, in part, by the idea of Confuciana China Family. These families are composed, most of the time, of a heterosexual marriage between man and woman, and the children born of this union. For this type of traditional thought, it is a great honor to have a legacy. Above all, male children, because they are the ones who will pass the family name to the next generation, something that also happens in other parts of the world where women adopt the husband’s last name and renounce their own. In China, conserving the name of the family for the next generation is very important. Therefore, the idea of a homosexual marriage or union between men and women is unattractive for people who have been born and educated in that traditional Confucian system because it does not include the possibility of procreation. Adopt would be a palliative for this apparent problem, but in China homosexuals cannot even legally marry, and even less adopt a child. Therefore, it becomes a vicious circle that is not resolved.

But there are multiple ways to "content" the family without giving up each other’s own sexuality. And this consists of marriages between homosexual men and women, who alienated to marry each other and appear "normality", while their lives are conditioned to hiding in order to live their sexuality. All for the strong pressure exerted by society today, years after homosexuality has been legalized.

For young Chinese, the most difficult part of the “leaving the closet” is to tell their parents. According to a testimony of a young man, when his parents learned of his homosexuality, they took him against his will to the hospital, thinking that it was a disease. And there he was subjected to various torture, in which the most striking was that they made her think of her boyfriend’s face to be immediately electrocuted, thus creating a total psychological rejection towards that person for fear of being tortured again. It is one of the darkest faces of the difficulties that homosexuals still face in China. Although it has been decriminalized and erased from the list of mental illnesses, homosexuality is still "cured" through various forms of inhuman torture in hospitals and clinics, where if you ask, they deny everything. (Extracted from “In China, the increasingly respected homosexuality”, video of the Spanish France 24, published on April 19, 2018)

Meanwhile, the role exerted by the Chinese government on this issue is void, but at the same time crushing. There are no laws that regulate and protect, either penalized, but like many other things in China, "what is not seen does not exist". And given the fear that homosexual people feel to open up to the world as they are, it causes only a few to have the courage to do so and face what they already feared: being badly seen in their environment and even becoming rejected intheir families and jobs. The Government disregards them, and lets society advance on this bad path, as if it were the executioner itself.

However, it is curious that, although they disregard the problem, that they try to put their eyes on the issues carried out by LGTBI+organizations, although in most cases, as it is not illegal in terms of legislative terms, notIt can prohibit some acts, which by minority that were in their origin, already suppose an advance in society. An example of these acts is the Shanghai Pride festival, which is held in the homonymous city since 2009, and that attracts a good number of people to the festival.

According to a video posted on May 17, 2016 on the information channel “24 hours. The newspaper without limits ”(https: // youtu.BE/VXMDKV9SFYC), only 5% of homosexual Chinese dares to live in an open and free way. According to this video, the future does not seem to be very encouraging for the collective, especially in the fields of work and family. States that transsexuals take the worst part, there are many cases in which there is harassment and violence. And in the most extreme cases, this violence derives in parents by sending their children to sexual conversion clinics to, supposedly, cure homosexuality. Despite all this, he says that China is still in full change, and that there is still a margin to normalize and educate in the subject.

In another video, entitled “Social experiment in China -“ I’m gay, would you hug me?"", And uploaded to the platform on the channel "Rela 熱拉" (https: // youtu.Be/uiszz_nftnq), we can see how a girl with a sign in which he puts “I’m gay, would you hug me?”He is standing with his eyes covered in the middle of the street. Some people look at her, even with a gesture of disapproval or strange. Some of these people who join the cause are not as young as the leading girl of the experiment, so perhaps we think they are people who have had a more open education, or have changed their way of thinking towardsCurrent reality.

After watching some more videos, I have released the following general conclusions:

• In general, young Chinese are more open, and they don’t mind having homosexual friends. They, however, believe that in the West we are more tolerant and there is more sexual diversity. But, like everything, there are also exceptions that can collide a little in the ear. I have listening to young boys and girls say that "homosexuality needs cure" or that "stress returns to homosexual people.”And right on the other side of the sidewalk, asking a very old man who says that he does not matter who fell in love, that a homosexual person or not for him does not mean any difference. Since it is logical, it is not always about generations or ages, but of open or not mind.
• There is little information in Chinese about these issues, since on social networks and on the Internet this issue is leaked and baneado. That is why the majority of information is coming from foreigners who have lived/known China, or Chinese who have been abroad. In 90% of cases it is not about information directly from Chinese reports or documents, but have leaked by the experiences and data that other people provide and publish on the networks, such as YouTube or Twitter, where I have mostly sought theMultimedia content.
• They seek to tell foreigners that, despite everything the bad thing is seen from the outside, they live well. They feel pressured, intimidated, but claim that nobody chases them or harass them permanently. In addition, most add that, seen from the point of view of a Chinese, the situation is not so bad, and that, luckily, it is changing and improving in favor of the collective. They claim to live as heterosexual people, but for the vision of a western one, where homosexuality is usually more accepted, it is incredible repression. That is why it amazes them so much that here, in Spain, for example, a large majority of homosexual people do not try to hide their sexuality or try to be something that they are not.
• Chinese young people usually admire their parents and want them to be happy. It is perhaps a reason for the very wide majority of them not to dare or do not want to tell their parents their sexual condition. They think that their parents will believe that they will not be healthy or "legal" people.

At the next point I will try to compare China’s LGTBI+ panorama with Spain, and vice versa.

From China to Spain, from Spain to China

According to the testimonies cited in the previous point, many Chinese homosexuals consider that, in the West, the thought about homosexuality and the LGTBI+ collective is much more open and normalized. And nothing is further from this reality, I think these young people have a point of reason. In Spain, I can proudly affirm that most people in my generation support the collective and sexual diversity in general. As always, and in everything, there are those who still disagree, and even call homosexuality, bisexuality and transsexuality are mental illnesses that must be cured. And although some days we can see cases of homophobia in the streets, it is not usual. Homosexual marriage in Spain was officially legalized on July 3, 2005, along with the majority of rights that led to do so. It was the third country in the world to do so, preceded by Holland and Belgium, and followed by South Africa, Norway and Sweden.

According to what I have already investigated, homosexuals in China live like any other person, with the impediment that they cannot live their sexuality and love in an open way, like any other heterosexual person would do without fear. Nor can they get married, because homosexual marriage is not yet legalized, there are not even intentions to do so by the government. Therefore, when they leave China, they feel much freer of knowing that no one is going to judge or feel rejected to go hand in hand with someone of the same sex, or by kissing in public.

In Spain, meanwhile, in normal situations nobody would be alarmed or say anything to see two people of the same sex walking very together, especially in young environments, where even people would look at them with a smile.

However, due to nearby experiences, the majority of homosexual young people in Spain still have a hard time "getting out of the closet" for fear of what their parents and family may think, who can still cost them to assimilate all these changes in society, plusopen that never before. Most prefer to wait to have a partner and then present it directly to their relatives, without using the words "Mom/Dad, I am gay/lesbiana". On the other hand, there is still a scourge in terms of homosexual couples, and they are the couple’s stereotypes. You tend to think, according to my experience as a Spanish person, that the "very dawned" boys are gais, or that the "masculine" girls are lesbians. They are very harmful stereotypes for some people, but in my opinion, I think they still persist and become much more evident according to time. In part, and luckily, social networks and activism outside and within these are helping to change these conceptions about people with this sexual identity.

In China I dare to think about something similar to stereotypes and social networks. But unlike Spain, what is published on the Internet is much more controlled and manipulated than in Europe, so I think it must be much more difficult to make publications or promulgate information about the LGTBI collective+. If social networks were more open, or could share content freely with the West and other countries in the world, Chinese thought could expand their horizons and understand certain trends of the human being such as homosexuality and free love.

Something curious that occurs in China, but not in Spain, is the method used by lesbian girls to hide. It is very common there that two friends go hand in hand, are very together, or kiss on the cheek. Something that in the boys would never be well seen there. However, they can use that as a pretext so that no one suspects that they are actually a couple. Two homosexual boys would be very easily recognizable for their condition if they walked hand in hand, or if they gave a simple kiss on the cheek, totally unlike the girls, which would happen much more unnoticed.

By taking into account all this, we ask ourselves a very simple question: what about homosexual foreigners living in China? Well, they have the same rights as the Chinese. None. But maybe they enjoy more freedom for the fact of "being foreigners". In China, in general, the foreigner is respected and welcome, and they show them a lot of interest and encouragement to know the country and its culture.

The reverse question: What about the homosexual Chinese living in Spain? According to several web pages on legal matters, two people with Chinese nationality and residing in Spain could marry. The only requirement is that both comply with the necessary documents for the link, such as the residence permit or a valid den. This also applies to the marriage between a person with Spanish nationality and another with, for example, Chinese nationality. The only negative consequence of this is, that in case they go to China, their marriage will not be recognized, and therefore will not appear as married in the Civil Registry.

In China, doing this procedure is nothing advisable. The laws of the country are usually very strict. If a person, for example, Spanish, wants to unite another of the same sex and nationality in China, could not be intrinsically done in China, since they would only appear as married in their country of origin (speaking, always, thatIn this country of origin, homosexual marriage is legalized). In China it doesn’t matter if you are a foreigner or not, two people of the same sex will never be recognized as united in marriage.

One of the problems that still concern homosexuality in countries with a Judeo -Christian tradition is that many people base all their beliefs in the Bible, so they resort to it to deny the fact that homosexuality is something natural inThe human being. According to some testimonies, “God created man and woman to be together, not for them to meet each other, thus desecrating the Word of God.”And it is that the Church as an institution does not make its position very clear about this issue, so it does not make it easier for its faithful to begin to see the world in a much more open way. Of course, not all Christians think like this, but there is a certain part that stands out for these ideas, calling attention and outraging those who support and protect the LGTBI collective+.

Something like that I think can happen in China, related as I said before, with Confucian thought about the traditional vision of the Chinese family. As we see, everything comes from yesteryear, although in China homosexuality was never prohibited as such while each individual of society complied with this Confucian standard of the almost obligation to bring descendants to the world.

To conclude this point I would like to give a small personal assessment on the subject. I think that in Spain there is still a very clear homophobia in society, especially from some radical sectors and people whose education has never appeared nothing more than to throw it through it. Little by little this is changing thanks to new technologies and the involvement of the LGTBI+ collective in the fight to achieve rights and visibility in society. But there is still much to change, and if you do not start for education to new generations, everything is much more difficult to lead to better. For example, my parents never taught me that homosexuality was wrong, but even I remember, with just six or seven years, that they asked me if I "liked" some boy or a girl. Later, when I immersed myself in the world of social networks and experiences, I saw and understood the topic much better, to the point of having it absolutely normalized in my daily life.

Conclusions

Will the homosexual marriage and the recognition they must have approved one day? It is difficult to say it today, in April 2019, but there are those who trust that, in the not too distant future, just 10 or 15 years, this can be achieved.

In Taiwan, the law that approves homosexual marriage can be approved on May 24 of this year, a very close date today. And if in the end they do, Taiwan will become the first Asian country to approve the law of homosexual marriage, which will undoubtedly be a historical fact and a large step for the LGTBI+ collective in Asia in Asia. However, it has its negative side, and that is that the island’s government still refuses to call it "marriage", just like the union between a man and a woman. They are signs that, although something is starting to change, there is still a lot.

Naturally, nothing can come forced or quickly in terms of rights acquisitions, since the human being has always been reluctant to change his customs and his way of thinking overnight. Thinking, it must be a very strong clash for a society as traditional as China is to adopt, sudden"Valid"). However, it is necessary to advance, although slowly, towards a future in which all sexual conditions are accepted and integrated within society as something normal and natural of the human being.

And for this, I think that China must observe and learn from other countries, considering what is good or bad for their society, adopting models that are critical and chords with the moment we are living. It is not necessary to cut from the root with the traditions and leave them aside with the pretext that they are outdated, but that new values can be added to the existing ones, according to the historical, social and cultural moment in which we are. The first step is to open the barriers and observe without judging.

We cannot be unrealistic and pretend that this is done next month, but that we must create an environment of equality among all that helps us open the minds and move together to a better future.