Having said that I don't have a problem with people's sexuality, I do have a problem with discrimination and prejudice.
I have a copy of a really quaint old textbook, a Penguin classic that I picked up in an Oxfam bookstore while browsing one day, entitled 'Sexual Deviancy'. It was part of a series of psychology/sociology texts (so it's not prurient or 'deviant' in itself, it was a serious book about a serious issue).
It really, really saddened me, the section on homosexuality. It was written in the 1960s, I think, and it describes the aversion 'treatments' given to homosexuals at a time when homosexuality was still a criminal offence in the UK. People were given painful electric shock treatments and taught to despise themselves and their feelings.
It was really awful stuff.
For those here who are straight and who disapprove of homosexuality, just imagine if some doctors and psychiatrists were trying to make you gay. You can't help being straight, it's just the way you were born. Yet there are medical professionals who are strapping you to beds, sticking electrodes to your head and running I don't know how many volts through your brain. All in an attempt to make you something you're not. Just imagine.
I'm really glad that that no longer happens in the UK. I know there is still some discrimination, and that things aren't perfect, but I'm glad we've moved on and got to where we are on this issue.
Especially since I've also lived in another country where things weren't so progressive or 'englightened', as I would consider it. I've known people, including someone very, very close to me, in China who've grown up in fear of their lives. Up until perhaps 20 or so years ago, to be discovered to be gay in China was to be executed. By firing squad. That was quite some time ago, but there are people in their 30s and 40s and even older who grew up aware of their feelings and their sexuality, but who were literally in fear for their lives.
But even when it was decriminalised and it was no longer and offence, it was still classified as a mental illness, so people remained fearful. It remained a diagnosable psychiatric condition in China until about... April 2001, off the top of my head...
Before that time, even within this last decade, only seven or eight years ago, a person found to be gay in China would have been fired from their job. If you work for the state sector in China -- and although there are an increasing number of private enterprises and the private sector is opening up, most people do, or did at that time, work in the state sector -- then your accommodation was also provided by your danwei, your work unit, your employer.
I know a lot of people here might be able to relate to that feeling of insecurity; that at any point you could get sacked and lose not only your job, but also your home.
But in China, if they were a member of the Communist Party like one of my close friends (not every one is, it's actually considered a huge privilege) you would be stripped of your membership and would effectively be declared persona non grata.
Unlike the kind of insecurity many expats feel, but with a safety net, secure in the knowledge they could head to their home country, re-group, and get another job and get on with their lives, that wasn't the case in China. You would not be able to get another job. You would have no job, no accommodation. Full stop.
I do take certain things for granted in the UK, such as how my friends in the main don't have to worry about getting sacked for being gay or losing their home. I don't really know any gay/bi/lesbian person who's really suffered in that way. Yes, they might have had a fair amount of personal angst in 'coming out', but they knew there was a 'scene', support organisations, that they were accepted by the vast majority of society, even if maybe their parents were a bit shocked or disappointed or upset.
And I appreciate the situation in the UK all the more for having met, known and cared for people who've had such a difficult time, who've even feared for their lives, in China.
And things have changed a lot and they are changing, and I'm very glad about that, having known and witnessed at first hand how some people suffered.
NB: I don't want anyone to get up in arms about human rights in China. To clarify: Homosexuality is no longer a crime in China. It is no longer considered a psychiatric illness. In the years since it was declassified, (instead of HIV/Aids awareness sefe sex literature in gay clubs, they used to leave leaflets telling men to go home to their wives) things have improved although of course after decades of discrimination there is still a bit of a residual taboo, especially among the older generations.
Having said that I don't have a problem with people's sexuality, I do have a problem with discrimination and prejudice.
I have a copy of a really quaint old textbook, a Penguin classic that I picked up in an Oxfam bookstore while browsing one day, entitled 'Sexual Deviancy'. It was part of a series of psychology/sociology texts (so it's not prurient or 'deviant' in itself, it was a serious book about a serious issue).
It really, really saddened me, the section on homosexuality. It was written in the 1960s, I think, and it describes the aversion 'treatments' given to homosexuals at a time when homosexuality was still a criminal offence in the UK. People were given painful electric shock treatments and taught to despise themselves and their feelings.
It was really awful stuff.
For those here who are straight and who disapprove of homosexuality, just imagine if some doctors and psychiatrists were trying to make you gay. You can't help being straight, it's just the way you were born. Yet there are medical professionals who are strapping you to beds, sticking electrodes to your head and running I don't know how many volts through your brain. All in an attempt to make you something you're not. Just imagine.
I'm really glad that that no longer happens in the UK. I know there is still some discrimination, and that things aren't perfect, but I'm glad we've moved on and got to where we are on this issue.
Especially since I've also lived in another country where things weren't so progressive or 'englightened', as I would consider it. I've known people, including someone very, very close to me, in China who've grown up in fear of their lives. Up until perhaps 20 or so years ago, to be discovered to be gay in China was to be executed. By firing squad. That was quite some time ago, but there are people in their 30s and 40s and even older who grew up aware of their feelings and their sexuality, but who were literally in fear for their lives.
But even when it was decriminalised and it was no longer and offence, it was still classified as a mental illness, so people remained fearful. It remained a diagnosable psychiatric condition in China until about... April 2001, off the top of my head...
Before that time, even within this last decade, only seven or eight years ago, a person found to be gay in China would have been fired from their job. If you work for the state sector in China -- and although there are an increasing number of private enterprises and the private sector is opening up, most people do, or did at that time, work in the state sector -- then your accommodation was also provided by your danwei, your work unit, your employer.
I know a lot of people here might be able to relate to that feeling of insecurity; that at any point you could get sacked and lose not only your job, but also your home.
But in China, if they were a member of the Communist Party like one of my close friends (not every one is, it's actually considered a huge privilege) you would be stripped of your membership and would effectively be declared persona non grata.
Unlike the kind of insecurity many expats feel, but with a safety net, secure in the knowledge they could head to their home country, re-group, and get another job and get on with their lives, that wasn't the case in China. You would not be able to get another job. You would have no job, no accommodation. Full stop.
I do take certain things for granted in the UK, such as how my friends in the main don't have to worry about getting sacked for being gay or losing their home. I don't really know any gay/bi/lesbian person who's really suffered in that way. Yes, they might have had a fair amount of personal angst in 'coming out', but they knew there was a 'scene', support organisations, that they were accepted by the vast majority of society, even if maybe their parents were a bit shocked or disappointed or upset.
And I appreciate the situation in the UK all the more for having met, known and cared for people who've had such a difficult time, who've even feared for their lives, in China.
And things have changed a lot and they are changing, and I'm very glad about that, having known and witnessed at first hand how some people suffered.
NB: I don't want anyone to get up in arms about human rights in China. To clarify: Homosexuality is no longer a crime in China. It is no longer considered a psychiatric illness. In the years since it was declassified, (instead of HIV/Aids awareness sefe sex literature in gay clubs, they used to leave leaflets telling men to go home to their wives) things have improved although of course after decades of discrimination there is still a bit of a residual taboo, especially among the older generations.