Chinese Student Sues Govt for Calling Homosexuality in Textbooks a Curable Mental Disorder
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Image: Qiu Bai and Wang Zheny
Qiu Bai (center) speaks to the media with her lawyer Wang Zhenyu (left) outside a court in Beijing on Tuesday. GREG BAKER / AFP - Getty Images
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A court heard opening arguments Tuesday in a case calling for textbooks published by China's Ministry of Education to alter or remove sections calling homosexuality a disease that can be cured.
A student who goes by the pseudonym Qiu Bai discovered the issue two years ago when as a curious freshman she looked through medical textbooks seeking answers about her own sexual orientation.
The 20-year-old showed NBC News one of the textbooks — "University Students Mental Health" — which states that gay people can change their sexual orientation through therapy.
"I thought textbooks should be trustworthy but when I saw these lines, I felt horrible. I was so worried about other people being afraid of gay people, like me," the student at Sun Yat-sen University in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou said. "This is discrimination against homosexuality."
The Chinese Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders in 2001. But a 2014 survey conducted by China's Tong Cheng Gay and Lesbian Campus Association found that 40 percent of textbooks published in the country after 2001 still classified homosexuality as a psychological disorder.
Qiu Bai earlier this year wrote an open letter to the Ministry of Education pointing out the errors and requesting corrections. When she got no response, she filed the lawsuit in August. The No. 1 Municipal Intermediate People's Court in Beijing heard the case on Tuesday and decided to hold a second hearing.
"I want related departments to admit these errors and I want to have an equal and open discussion with them about these errors," Qiu Bai said. "This case is not even close to ending. Unless the Ministry of Education take some real actions to change this, I won't give it up."
The New York Times reports two-dozen supporters waved signs and a rainbow flag outside a Chinese courthouse during a discussion between Qui and education officials Tuesday. While nothing was settled, Qui and her lawyer say it was a minor victory to even have the discussion while China continues to crack down on activists and human-rights lawyers. Discrimination against homosexuals is prevalent in China, and experts say with little in the way of sex education, medically accurate textbooks are essential, according to the Post. "Because textbooks are seen as having authority, everyone—including the students, the teachers, and the parents—believes them," one activist tells the Post. NBC reports 40% of textbooks still classified homosexuality as a disease as of 2014. "This case is not even close to ending,"Qui says. “I won't give it up."
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