China's acceptance of gay soldiers evolving

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Excerpts from South China Morning Post article

 

With its uncompromising image, the People’s Liberation Army of China may seem an unlikely employer of choice for the country’s gay community.

 

But it could be argued that the Chinese army is a less uncomfortable environment for gay people than Chinese society at large. That might sound surprising, since the country as a whole is not noted for its tolerance towards the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) community.

 

Chinese police detain gay people who gather in public places and the government shuts down unsanctioned gay-focused publications or television shows. In the past, Chinese society has found homosexuality generally incompatible with the values of mainstream culture and in the 20th and 21st centuries the country lagged the West in moving towards equal legal status for its homosexual citizens.

 

But there are some reasons to believe attitudes are changing, albeit slowly, not least among them China’s decision in March to release an uncensored version of Disney’s Beauty and the beast, when in much of the rest of Asia conservative groups were fretting about a gay scene in the film.

 

It’s also worth noting that China’s treatment of homosexuality differs from the West in that it is a passive intolerance, rather than an active one.

 

Barring some notable exceptions, China has tended not to encourage violence against homosexuals nor to force them to “mend their ways”. Neither has it tended to imprison people purely for being gay, even though homosexuality was illegal until 1997. This is very different to attitudes in the US and Britain, where until recently gay people were actively oppressed.

 

However, Chinese cultural mores and behavioural norms tend to be more uniform than in Western societies, and while this is beneficial for unity, it can result in a difficulty for anyone finding themselves in a minority of any kind.

 

One junior ranking soldier commented: “The internet has saved us.” He described how an aim of any gay recruit was to find a “big soldier brother” to look after him during his period of service. Since protector relationships are common among heterosexual soldiers, no suspicion is aroused when a sergeant has a particular favourite among the rank and file, or an officer of field rank takes a junior lieutenant under his wing.

 

China may be a long way from granting the LGBT community the same rights as heterosexual citizens, but a look at how gay people are treated in the PLA suggests that there is a certain type of tolerance that, at least until recently, was uncommon in Western armies.

 

Continues

http://www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/2094429/army-life-more-gay-friendly-china-west