Qiu Bai, first from left, holds signs and the rainbow flag with friends outside the Beijing First Intermediate People's Court on Monday. (Photo/Courtesy of Qiu Bai)
Though Chinese society has shown signs of increasing tolerance toward sexual minorities, student LGBT activists say that they still face discrimination and even bullying on campus.
Xiao Qi (pseudonym) wants universities to be more inclusive toward LGBT students.
She, along with 100 other signatories, has asked one college to consider this proposal in a joint letter to the president of the Guangdong University of Foreign Studies (GUFS).
The institution, in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province has not replied to her more than a month after she sent the letter.
The letter came hot on the heels of another controversial proposal in which one lesbian student asked her girlfriend to marry her at a GUFS graduation ceremony this June. GUFS said the proposal "violated regulations," and one of the students had her diploma withheld and the other was outed to her parents without her knowledge.
Meanwhile, thousands of miles away in Beijing, college student Qiu Bai (pseudonym) just finished her court case against the Ministry of Education on Monday, though the results have not yet been made public. This case is the latest step in Qui Bai's fight to remove material from college textbooks which she says "smears" LGBT people.
Qiu Bai, who studies at Guangdong's Sun Yat-sen University, said she started to worry about her sexual orientation after reading psychology textbooks in college which she describes as "toxic" because they describe gay people has having a "disease."
Their cases show that there is much work to be done as misunderstandings and discrimination against LGBT people are common on campus.
In addition, compared with other groups in society, LGBT students face challenges not only in coming out of the closet but also in self-acceptance and receiving sufficient support, and many are in urgent need of help, said Dou Dou, head of GLCAC, an NGO dedicated to improving the campus environment for LGBT students.
According to Dou Dou, there have been three cases of gay students killing themselves this year. Although he admits that the campus environment for LGBT groups has been improving in recent years, "there are a series of problems related to sexual minorities that need to be addressed but have failed to attract due attention," Dou Dou told the Global Times.
Seizing the chance
Wang Xiaoyu (pseudonym) says that GUFS's reaction to her girlfriend's proposal has damaged her relationship with her parents. In June, Huang Yang (pseudonym), Wang's girlfriend, proposed to her after their graduation ceremony was over, carrying the rainbow gay pride banner and a bunch of roses.
"We decided to come out of the closet with a proposal so that the relationships of sexual minorities could be seen, discussed and pondered over in the campus, so as to do our part for creating an open and diversified campus environment," Wang explained in an open letter in June.
But this proposal turned sour when Wang was threatened with punishment by the college, had her diploma withheld and even had the lock of her apartment door broken. The school later said that college staff broke down her door because they and her parents "couldn't find her." A teacher told her not to accept interviews from the media to avoid a negative impact on the school and even hinted that the college suspected that Wang was being used by "foreign forces."
Teachers also sent Wang's parents online news reports about the incident, telling them Wang's sexual orientation without Wang's knowledge. "So, before I had time to prepare my parents, I was out of the closet," Wang wrote in the open letter.
"I had planned to tell them at a proper time. I never expected that there would be such severe consequences," Wang said.
Qiu Bai had a similar experience when her teachers sent reports about her lawsuit to her parents, outing her.
But while Wang was punished for their proposal, last year, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the foundation of GUFS, the college held a collective wedding ceremony for 50 straight couples who had graduated from the school.
"It is rather irresponsible and unfair for the teachers and the school to treat gay people like this. The school totally disregards students' safety and shows no respect to their privacy," said Xiao Qi, a student at Guangzhou University, adding that it is common for students to face violence and even being locked in their room by parents after their sexual orientation was revealed to their parents.
She mobilized 100 gay students at colleges all over the country and wrote a joint letter to the president of GUFS, attacking the obvious discrimination and offering suggestions about the college's policies on privacy protection and relevant education.
"We hope GUFS could make a change taking this chance, and set an example for other schools in the country, to create a more friendly environment for the group," said Xiao Qi.
