VZCZCXRO8283
RR RUEHCN RUEHGH
DE RUEHGH #0318/01 1490621
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 290621Z MAY 07
FM AMCONSUL SHANGHAI
TO RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC
INFO RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING 1116
RUEHSH/AMCONSUL SHENYANG 0677
RUEHCN/AMCONSUL CHENGDU 0673
RUEHGZ/AMCONSUL GUANGZHOU 0655
RUEHHK/AMCONSUL HONG KONG 0783
RUEHIN/AIT TAIPEI 0547
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHINGTON DC
RUCPDOC/DEPT OF COMMERCE WASHINGTON DC
RUEAUSA/DEPT OF HHS WASHINGTON DC
RUEHGH/AMCONSUL SHANGHAI 6266

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 05 SHANGHAI 000318 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR EAP/CM, DRL 
STATE PASS FOR USTR STRATFORD, WINTER, MCCARTIN, ALTBACH, READE 
TREAS FOR AMB HOLMER, WRIGHT, TSMITH 
TREAS FOR OASIA - DOHNER/HAARSAGER/KUSHMAN 
USDOC FOR ITA/MAC - DAS KASOFF, MELCHER, MCQUEEN 
HHS FOR OGHA/STEIGER AND AMER BHAT 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PHUM SOCI TBIO CH
SUBJECT: SHANGHAI'S GAY COMMUNITY 
 
¶1. (U) Summary:  In a series of meetings with Poloff in April 
2007, gay individuals in Shanghai said their identity and 
lifestyle continued to be shaped by family and social pressures 
to conform, which had different impacts on male and female 
homosexuals.  Maintaining a gay identity tended to be less at 
the forefront for Chinese gays and lesbians than maintaining 
family harmony and "face."  General public attitudes towards 
homosexuality were not hostile but instead shaped by a greater 
social ideal of the traditional family.  This is the first of 
four cables updating the social, medical, media and legal trends 
in the gay community in Shanghai.  End Summary. 
 
SHANGHAI: CHINA'S EMERGING SAN FRANCISCO 
---------------------------------------- 
 
¶2. (SBU) Shanghai is a cosmopolitan and international city, 
where women are reported to have stronger personalities than men 
who are sought after for their cleaning and cooking talents and 
emotional tenderness.  During the month of April, Poloff 
conducted numerous interviews with gay individuals living in 
Shanghai, as well as academics and health professionals, to 
discuss the gay community in Shanghai.  The majority of gay 
individuals interviewed for this cable find Shanghai an easy 
place to live, particularly gay men.  One gay male volunteer for 
Chi Heng Foundation, a group that operated a toll-free hotline 
for callers with questions about being gay, said that he "could 
not imagine the misery of being gay in the countryside" and 
relished his anonymity in Shanghai.  He advised callers from 
small towns to move to Shanghai, which he called "China's San 
Francisco," or, Beijing, a second but lesser option.  By 
contrast, a senior doctor from the International Peace Maternity 
and Child Health Hospital who was engaged in research on the gay 
community insisted that Chengdu's environment far surpassed 
Shanghai due to the quality of gay bars and frequency of 
"traditional gay performances."  He said that Chengdu's 
sophisticated gay entertainment was not due to the city's 
distance from Beijing, but because a high-level official in the 
Chengdu municipal government was "personally interested" in the 
gay community's quality of entertainment. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) A gay 25 year-old male engineer from Zhejiang and a 
gay 23 year-old male from Jilin said that it was easy to be 
"out" in Shanghai because of the reputation of Shanghai men as 
being "soft and effeminate."  They said that "people don't 
necessarily think we are gay...just Shanghainese."  They both 
agreed that lesbians had the most freedom in Shanghai because it 
was generally acceptable for women to hold hands in public. 
They believed that "butch" or masculine lesbians were especially 
lucky since most people thought the short hairstyles and tomboy 
dress were fashion statements celebrating the recent Super Girl 
TV show winners who dressed in androgynous clothing. 
 
¶4.  (SBU) Contacts noted, however, that Shanghainese attitudes 
towards gay people were not motivated by openness towards 
homosexuality, but rather a cultivated ignorance.  One lesbian 
said that her cropped hair, deep voice, and boyish clothing 
caused confusion amongst some Shanghainese.  She noted that 
customers, taxi drivers and restaurant staff insisted that she 
was a man despite her protests to the contrary.  A 
thirty-something lesbian said that she did not think the typical 
Shanghainese was concerned about gay issues or would consider 
going to an event to learn more about gay people.  The gay 
engineer agreed, stating that Shanghainese people were aware 
that some people were gay, but "don't think twice about it 
unless a direct family member is involved."  Describing Shanghai 
people's attitudes towards homosexuality, openly gay Lawyer Zhou 
Dan quoted the traditional Confucian traditional saying, 
"feiliwushi, feiliwuting, feiliwuxin, feiliwudong," meaning 
people see something "uncivil" but don't state it or take 
action, to describe Shanghai people's attitudes about 
homosexuality.  For example, after Zhou recently appeared on a 
Phoenix TV show about gay issues, family friends, who were 
previously unaware that Zhou was gay, approached his parents and 
simply said "we saw your son on television."  Nothing further 
was discussed about the show or Zhou, but he said this was a 
very Chinese way of making something hidden known but allowing 
 
SHANGHAI 00000318  002 OF 005 
 
 
it to remain unspoken. 
 
ANONYMITY MAKES GOOD NEIGHBORS 
------------------------------ 
 
¶5. (SBU) Due to the low level of awareness about homosexuality 
in Shanghai, most gay couples' had few problems in renting 
apartments or living together.  The gay engineer from Zhejiang 
explained that it was to their advantage that "young people in 
Shanghai don't talk to their neighbors," adding that only people 
"over 50 who lived in a small neighborhood for over ten years" 
spoke to each other.  He rarely saw his neighbors and suspected 
that even if his neighbors were aware that he was gay, they 
would not speak out.  Another trend many identified was between 
sets of older gay male and lesbian couples.  In this scenario, 
two same-sex male and female couples purchased two apartments in 
the same building.  The couples could then quickly switch to 
opposite sex couples for events with relatives, giving the 
appearance of a traditional family. 
 
ACADEMIA: THE STRAIGHT AND NARROW 
---------------------------------- 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Academic institutions in Shanghai have begun to pay 
more attention to the gay community, primarily in relation to 
health issues.  Prestigious Fudan University offers two classes 
on gay issues: "Homosexual Health" at the School of Public 
Health, taught by Professor Gao Yanning, and "Gay Studies" at 
the Department of Sociology, taught by Professor Sun Zhongxin. 
In a meeting with Poloff on April 17, Dr. Gao said he began his 
class in 2003 with only one registered student.  In the 
following years, only four students on average registered per 
semester.  However, Dr. Gao said that the class was typically 
filled with 90-100 unofficial students, drawn by the day's topic 
or a guest lecturer.  He suspected that they preferred not to 
have the course on their official transcripts. 
 
¶7.  (SBU) Despite several course offerings on gay studies and an 
increase in graduate research on the gay community, university 
students faced pressure to be perceived as "normal."  Shanghai 
Academy of Social Sciences (SASS) Research Center for HIV/AIDS 
Public Policy Director Xia Guomei cautioned that just because 
students took these classes did not mean that they accepted the 
gay community.  Zhou Dan also noted that there was pressure for 
"top students" to appear straight out of fear of being excluded 
from scholarships or entry into advanced studies.  He said while 
he recognized that he was gay at an early age, he stayed 
closeted at university because he was worried about how his 
professors would treat him and was concerned that they would not 
provide him with future recommendations.  One gay male said that 
being a top student gave him freedom to explore his sexuality: 
"my grades gave me flexibility or a buffer zone to do what I 
wanted."  He noted that "teachers in China don't know much about 
this area or how to deal with it, so they pretend that it 
doesn't exist." 
 
¶8.  (SBU) There are few gay or lesbian student organizations in 
Shanghai.  According to Dr. Gao, there was only one gay-related 
student organization at Fudan University, which called itself 
Knowledge Peace Group (Zhi Heshi).  It was established in 2005 
for the purpose of researching the gay community in relation to 
health issues.  Gao served as the group's supervisor.  The group 
was composed of around 30 members with both gay and straight 
students.  During Poloff's discussion with the group's founder, 
he indicated that the group was more of a social group but had 
initiated Fudan's first performance of the Eve Ensler's Vagina 
Monologues in 2004. 
 
WORKPLACE: KEEPING A LOW PROFILE 
-------------------------------- 
 
¶9. (SBU) Despite Shanghai's booming economy and multitude of 
multinational companies, gay individuals appear to be accepted, 
or even present, only within a narrow scope of professions. 
Many gay individuals spoke of occasional unwelcome attention 
from co-workers trying to find them spouses.  One man said, 
 
SHANGHAI 00000318  003 OF 005 
 
 
"People think we live a miserable life in solitude," and found 
that his single status was cause for great concern at the 
office.  One woman said that it was impossible to get promotions 
since a woman in her mid-thirties who was unmarried and was 
clearly "normal."  The 25 year-old engineer from Zhejiang 
expressed with some dismay that he might be "the only gay 
engineer in Shanghai."  Wearing a tight tank top and a diamond 
hoop, he explained that he dressed very differently at work and 
was not out to co-workers.  He did not believe that anyone at 
his large engineering firm was aware that he was gay, and he was 
not aware of any other gay colleagues. 
 
¶10.  (SBU) A lesbian working in the wine industry had told all 
of her local friends that she was gay but preferred not to tell 
her co-workers because "Shanghainese liked to gossip."  And 
while the engineer felt isolated at his firm, another gay male 
was relatively comfortable being out with his colleagues because 
"there are many gay people in public relations and advertising." 
 Besides, many gay Shanghainese did not use their sexuality as a 
primary identifier.  One man said, "unlike Americans, Chinese 
people are not identity obsessed." 
 
¶11.  (SBU) A lesbian sporting a mowhawk said that she had very 
long hair when she was hired by a local PR firm.  Once her look 
changed, the firm's HR director spoke to her about the need "to 
wear high heels and not to dress like a boy."  She has since 
come out to some straight colleagues but has always worried 
about their reaction. She also changed positions and now worked 
for a foreign company, where many of the employees were gay. 
Her work contract impressed her most because it contained a 
paragraph on the company's policy not to discriminate based on 
sexuality.  However, even at her new position, she still worried 
about making straight employees "feel uncomfortable." 
 
¶12.  (SBU) According to a 24-year old gay male from Chongqing, 
and graduate of Fudan University, most foreign firms were more 
gay-friendly than Chinese firms.  He was not out at his previous 
employer, GE, but decided to be out to certain employees at his 
new firm, McKinsey Consulting, after discovering that one of the 
partners was Chinese and openly gay.  He joined Gays and 
Lesbians at McKinsey (GLAM), which held conferences around the 
world for all gay employees.  He said there were only three 
members at the Shanghai branch, but noted that there could be 
more.  Apparently, the Asian branches of GLAM were always very 
small in comparison to the North American and European branches. 
 
¶13.  (SBU) Many gay individuals said that they suspected their 
co-workers were aware of their sexuality but preferred not to 
openly acknowledge nontraditional behavior.  A local gay man 
said the fine line of tolerance was "actually stating someone 
was gay."  He told a story of a friend who worked in a 
three-star hotel and was fired after his boyfriend announced 
their relationships to other employees.  His boss dismissed him 
by saying that too many people knew about him and that he had 
disgraced the company. 
 
FAMILY OUTLOOK/PRESSURES 
------------------------ 
 
¶14.  (SBU) Beneath Shanghai's modern veneer, traditional values 
run deep.  The social pressure to conform stems from the family 
unit, with many gay individuals bowing to family pressure to 
marry and produce children.  Almost all gay individuals 
interviewed remain closeted to their parents and related stories 
about gay people who revealed their sexuality only to have their 
parents try to "cure them."  One gay male remained closeted 
because his mother "constantly told me that all gay people have 
HIV/AIDS and other diseases."  One lesbian explained that the 
Asian cultural pressure to continue the family bloodline was the 
biggest barrier to full disclosure.  She said "adoption was not 
even acceptable in Chinese families since blood was not passed 
to a new generation."  She spoke with some sadness about China's 
new adoption law, explaining that the ban on single parents 
could mean she would have to enter a convenience marriage, a gay 
man wedded to a gay woman, to adopt in the future.  However, she 
and her girlfriend had shared the same room at her parents' home 
 
SHANGHAI 00000318  004 OF 005 
 
 
multiple times, and her parents always welcomed visits from her 
girlfriend who they referred to as her "good friend" 
 
¶15.  (SBU) Some parents suspected their children's sexuality but 
preferred it remain an unknown. One 35-year old gay male from 
Chengdu described coming out to his parents as a guilt-inducing 
process that felt like "shaking off a burden and placing it on 
them because they now had to decide how to tell their friends." 
He added that after he came out, his parents still tried to set 
him up with a girl.  To his surprise, his father eventually gave 
him permission to marry a lesbian as an option "to save face in 
their social network."  Zhou Dan said the problem of fake 
marriages, where one spouse was unaware of the other's 
homosexuality, was the number one issue facing the gay community 
in China.  Zhou blamed the traditional Chinese outlook on family 
for the pervasiveness of this problem.  According to Zhou, 
homosexual men in fake marriages treated their sexual relations 
with men as a hobby and continued to have heterosexual 
relationships, and even children, to please their parents. 
 
WHERE HAVE ALL THE LESBIANS GONE? 
--------------------------------- 
 
¶16.  (SBU) Another factor impacting the gay community in 
Shanghai was the gender component at play within the gay 
community.  In Shanghai, women's and men's lives were quite 
different due to the gender inequalities in China at large. 
Convenience marriages and conventional marriages, for example, 
mean very different things to lesbians or gays.  One researcher 
noted that gay men may have had the stigma of HIV/AIDS to 
counter in society but that "gay women have no identity at all, 
which may be even worse."  One gay individual counted at least 
11 gay venues in Shanghai, mainly catering to gay men.  A 
graduate student researching gay websites identified 100 
websites devoted to the gay male community, but only 5.4 percent 
geared towards lesbians.  The owner of a gay nightclub said that 
"when someone comments on the gay community in Shanghai, the 
only image that comes to mind is a bunch of men."  Shanghai 
Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/shanghailgbt/ was the first online 
effort to unite the gay community and draw out Shanghai's 
seemingly hidden lesbians.  One gay male explained that it was 
typical in Shanghai for gay men to congregate and organize 
social events, but lesbians remained barely visible, preferring 
to keep to themselves. 
 
¶17.  (SBU) One woman pointed to the creation of "Les in 
Shanghai," another Yahoo group, which screened potential members 
to ensure only gay females were permitted, as an example of the 
divide.  Shanghai LGBT was started in December 2006 in response 
to "Les in Shanghai" denying membership to a straight female. 
One of the LGBT founders said that the "Les in Shanghai" members 
believed that straight applicants aimed to publicly "out" them. 
Zhou Dan said lesbians distrusted the gay community because of 
previous approaches by gay men with offers to enter fake 
marriages.  For women, family pressure forced women into 
marrying, preferably before the age of 30.  A senior doctor at 
the International Peace Maternity and Child Health Hospital 
pointed out that "if men don't get married, there are many 
excuses ... they don't have a house, a high salary or a good job 
... but for women there is only one excuse or they have a 
disease."  In fact, he stated "women have zero reasons not to be 
married." 
 
¶18.  (SBU) Some believed that the lack of visible lesbians or 
lesbian venues might be due to a general trend in Shanghai of 
women making lower salaries than men.  One lesbian said that gay 
bars for women did not stay in business long since most lesbians 
in Shanghai were only "out" for a short period of time.  She 
explained that many lesbians only "come out" during college when 
they still lived with their parents and had minimal disposable 
cash.  After graduation, many lesbians entered fake marriages 
and disappeared from the scene. 
 
¶19. (SBU) Gay men in Shanghai tended to have stronger economic 
pull, and many stores and clubs had caught on and now vied for 
 
SHANGHAI 00000318  005 OF 005 
 
 
their patronage.  One gay Shanghai native said that "gay men 
were first publicized by HIV/AIDS and now everyone wants our 
money."  The gay McKinsey employee noted that beggars and taxi 
drivers were all aware of the gay income power and stationed 
themselves outside of nightclubs like "Pink Home."  He said that 
"a lot of beggars focus on the gay scene because they know that 
gay men don't have a family burden, and many are rich." 
 
COMMENT 
------- 
 
¶20.  (SBU) The personal concerns of gay individuals in Shanghai 
about what to tell family and coworkers remain similar to those 
around the world.  The tolerant Shanghai population - perhaps 
influenced by Shanghai's long-standing view of itself as an 
international city with sophisticated, urbane people - leads to 
fewer actual social clashes or problems than might be expected 
in the face of thousands of years of traditional Chinese values. 
 However, this lack of obvious social clashes continues to mean 
that legal issues related to the gay community, such as those 
emerging in other countries, have not yet become major social 
issues.  There has yet to be a "Stonewall" in Shanghai or a 
single moment of public controversy to push gay rights or issues 
to the forefront of public debate.  Furthermore, it seems that 
the Shanghai government, as with many topics, is content not to 
suppress or encourage public thinking about gay issues. 
JARRETT