Spreading awareness

Zhou and Xiaotao will get married in the US this summer. They were one of 10 gay Chinese couples who were chosen as part of a special Valentine's Day event to hold a group wedding ceremony in West Hollywood, California.

The event was organized by non-profit LGBT organizations such as Danlan.org and Taobao, Alibaba's e-commerce platform, as part of an effort to generate respect and understanding for gay people in China.

The competition started on January 23 and underwent three phases with more than 400 gay couples registering and 20 couples making it to the final round.

Those who registered uploaded videos of their love stories and the final couples were selected based on the votes they received from netizens in an open online poll.

Zhou said that the idea of getting married had never been one they considered previously, but they were living together like a married couple.

During the first two years of their relationship, Xiaotao and Zhou worked in two different cities, Suzhou and Shanghai. Then Xiaotao moved to Shanghai and they started living together. Their relationship became stable, their families started meeting each other and they, in every way other than legally, were married.

Then the LGBT nonprofits and Taobao cohosted the event, and Zhou was interested, even though he knows they won't enjoy any legal benefits from the marriage.

"We know this marriage won't be recognized by Chinese law, so this ceremony will probably only be a ceremony," Zhou said.

But the people who signed up believe this is a chance to spread knowledge to the public.

Right now, gay couples in China have to find their own ways to protect their rights.

Anwei and Yebin, a gay couple who live in a rural part of Hebei Province, signed a contract between them, saying if they split up, they will divide their common property and house between them, just as a married couple would in that situation.

Campaign for change

But more often than not, their rights are not protected. In order to help China's gay community, Li Yinhe, one of the first sexologists to publish books on homosexuality, started advocating the legalization of gay marriage in 2000.

At that time, the NPC proposed revising the marriage law and sought suggestions from sociologists and legal experts. When Li proposed adding gay marriage to the law, others dismissed her argument saying simply that China doesn't need to take the lead in this matter.

In 2001, Li asked an NPC deputy from Shanghai to take her pro-gay marriage proposal to the two sessions. In the end the deputy wasn't able to submit the proposal because a proposal needs signatures from 30 other deputies to be accepted and he couldn't find that many people who would put their names to the document.

Li then asked a CPPCC member to advocate on behalf of the gay community. The member did, but asked Li not to reveal their discussion as it is a sensitive issue.

Since then, Li has written blogs every year calling for deputies to bring her proposal to the two sessions.

Even though she hasn't received much of an official response, Li believes that Chinese society is ready for gay people to have greater rights.

"In 2008, I did a survey about people's attitude on homosexuality. Compared with the US, where 47 percent voted for gay marriage, 43 against and 10 percent are undecided, in China only about 10 or 20 percent people agree or disagree, most of the people are undecided," she said.

Hu Zhijun, the executive director of PFLAG, said they have been trying to change the situation through the courts. The group reaches out to lawyers who might be friendly to the organization and offers the lawyers training sessions, so that when gay people face a legal dilemma, they have experts that are sensitive to their specific needs to whom they can talk.

Some of the issues covered in the sessions include adoption, domestic violence and the skewed perspective on homosexuality presented in some of the country's schools.

"The focus of the training is to find more lawyers to help homosexuals, and we've seen an increase in the numbers of lawyers coming for the training sessions," Hu said.

A recent case was the lawsuit filed by a gay man against Baidu.com and the Chongqing-based clinic Xinyupiaoxiang, which used shock treatment in what it described as "conversion therapy" to turn him into a heterosexual. The case was supported by lawyers in the network and in the end the court ruled in favor of the man.

Hu thinks that at present, as gay marriage isn't likely to be legalized in the short term, education might be the best option. He hopes that through education, young people might become advocates for gay rights and become a force for change.