beijing without borders: HIV testing & Beijing's gay community

On my last day working at UNIDO, I went on a site visit with UN staff members to an HIV testing site sponsored by UNAIDS. I really enjoyed getting to know more about the other UN agencies' programs in China, since I don't think there's enough contact or collaboration between agencies as there should be. The fact that it was related to gay rights and HIV awareness, issues which I feel very strongly about, made me more appreciative of the experience.

Let me back up for some more context. I've lived in some of the most gay-friendly places in the world in the last 5 years. Although discrimination and hate crimes against the LGBT do occur in California just like everywhere else, California is still a very tolerant place (despite the whole Prop 8 mess which is an embarrassment). Living in LA, next to the thriving WeHo gay community and especially in our own Westwood bubble, being gay or having a gay best friend can be fashionable and trendy. I was truly living in a misleading bubble when virtually all of your friends, gay or not, support gay marriage and equal rights. I even have friends who are Republicans and politically conservative who still support gay marriage. Traveling and living in other places definitely puts things into perspective.

That brings me to China. I didn't exactly conduct surveys with everybody I met and I still don't know if what I've heard is representative of the different demographics. I do know that many Chinese men enter heterosexual relationships and marry women because of familial and societal pressures. As I already explained with in my dating post, one of the biggest pressure that young people in their 20's and 30's feel is to find a spouse and start a family. With that being said, in any population set, roughly 10% is gay. That's 1 out of 10. In China, that means that out of a population of 1.3 billion and 700 million men, 7 million are gay. Seven million are gay, and do not live in a society where their needs are address nor their lifestyles tolerated. Danlan is a LGBT website and NGO that has taken a stand and supports the LGBT community: they provide a dating service and social network, HIV awareness programs, as well as social programs for gays and straights. The focal activity of our visit was their free (and anonymous) HIV testing service; the problem in China is that most people who suspect that they are HIV-positive don't get tested at the conventional facilities, where they must use their ID card. Danlan's site provides a quicker test (20 minutes vs. 3 hours), a gay-friendly environment, and ANONYMOUS testing. They have a sign-in sheet where they encourage people to voluntarily leave their name and contact information, so that Danlan can help them and provide resources if they test positive. The scariest statistic that I heard is that 8% of tests result in a positive. That's huge. That means that out of the 22 million people in Beijing, and roughly 1.1 million gay men, some thousands visited Danlan CBO and 8% found out they are HIV positive. It's also estimated that 5% gay men in Beijing are HIV positive.

Another eye-opening part of the visit was not what they told us about the gay community in China, but rather the reactions and the questions of the audience. There were about 25 UN staff in the group, most of whom were Chinese nationals, female, and between the ages of 25 and 45. I felt a mixture of emotions when I heard the type of questions that they asked: embarrassment, disbelief, and anger. I mean, you don't expect M, a woman in her 40s, who amidst giggles asked the (gay) program director if he's ever had a crush on a girl, or if he's ever had a girlfriend, or if gay people cheat on each other and have relationships just like straight people. Really? Even middle schoolers know better than that! But just as she was opened up to another world, and learned that homosexuals indeed love, lust, and go through relationships and life just like heterosexuals, I also discovered that ignorance is extremely widespread yet can be easily remedied. For M, who had never before met any open homosexuals nor questioned her own sexuality, it took meeting open gay men who were able to articulate their own experiences for her to realize that there's really nothing different about gay people.

Our visit concluded with Danlan showing us what they're doing to promote acceptance and tolerance of the LGBT community. They're constantly working on new campaigns, seminars, and events in China. For example, they held talks at universities and released short films, directed toward anyone, on how HIV is transmitted and how they can treat their HIV-positive friends and avoid embarrassing them or any other awkward situations. (link) We also learned a bit about the problems they faced from the gonganju, which nitpicks and looks for any problem to shut down their website. (They also mentioned that same-sex PDA media is not technically illegal in China, as long as they keep within the nudity regulations.)

Here's a video clip from the testing site (I met both Gengle and Hanhan at the site visit, who were really great and absurdly patient with the Q&A): http://www.queercomrades.com/en/news/china/danlan-testing/.

The guys were also great at promoting Destination, the gay bar/nightclub which hosts the HIV testing center on their 4th floor (the first two floors are dedicated to the bar, and the upper two levels consist of office and administrative space, meeting rooms, a room for workouts or dance, etc), so I just had to check it out... you know, field research for my blog. This place was huge and absolutely packed. At first it was a bit of a disappointment for my friend and I because people were just hanging out (and smoking a lot, like any other bar) and we wanted to dance! Eventually we were able to find the dance floor, and all was good.