At the end of last summer, Mei* received a message from her friend telling her she was running away from home. It was the first time that Mei, 29, a transgender woman living in a southern Chinese city, had heard from her friend Ying* in nine months. Ying’s family – who are not supportive of her trans identity – had been keeping Ying, an adult over 18, under house arrest and cut off from the outside world. In August, they finally allowed her to leave to pursue her studies. She…
Tag: LGBTQ+ rights
Human rights in decline globally as leaders fail to uphold laws, report warns
Human rights across the world are in a parlous state as leaders shun their obligations to uphold international law, according to the annual report of Human Rights Watch (HRW). In its 2024 world report, HRW warns grimly of escalating human rights crises around the globe, with wartime atrocities increasing, suppression of human rights defenders on the rise, and universal human rights principles and laws being attacked and undermined by governments. The report highlights political leaders’ increasing disregard for international human rights laws. The report says “selective government outrage and transactional…
Gay Games delight Hong Kong amid China’s growing hostility to LGBTQ+ community
After months of pandemic-related delays, Asia’s first Gay Games was held in Hong Kong last week, with nearly 2,400 athletes competing. At the opening ceremony, Regina Ip, the convenor of Hong Kong’s executive council, said the competition represented the city’s commitment to “equal opportunity and non-discrimination”, and praised Hong Kong’s courts for the “numerous judgments” handed down in favour of the LGBTQ+ community in the past decade. This was met with bemusement by activists and lawyers, who pointed out that Ip’s government has opposed each of those judgments, losing in…
China fuels global surge in mpox cases as LGBTQ+ stigma hampers response
China is fuelling a global surge in mpox cases, accounting for the majority of new cases reported in September, according to the World Health Organization. The number of weekly cases reported globally increased by 328% in the week to 10 September, data shows. Most of that rise came from China, where more than 500 new cases were reported in August. The WHO said China was experiencing “sustained community transmission” of the virus, which was first detected as an imported case in September last year. Mpox was previously known as Monkeypox…
Lan Yu review – Stanley Kwan’s masterly and gentle Beijing-set gay melodrama
At the start of Stanley Kwan’s masterly 2001 melodrama, entrepreneur Chen Handong (Hu Jun) thinks back to the 1980s and to the night he met young architecture student Lan Yu (Liu Ye), freshly arrived in Beijing from the country and ripe for mentoring and more. The older man warns his toy boy not to get attached. “When two people know each other too well, it’s time to separate,” he says – then signally fails to heed his own advice. He showers Lan Yu with gifts, even buying him a villa,…
How a rabbit god became an icon for Taiwan’s gay community
During a quiet mid-week afternoon on the eighth floor of an office building, A-wei is meditatively separating flower petals to make an offering to Tu’er Shen the rabbit god, a spiritual guardian of LGBTQI people. The small Taoist temple where 24-year-old A-wei sits is a humble room with views across New Taipei city, made cosy by the smell of incense and the mews of two noisy cats. At one end of the room is the main altar, with three cushions for prayer and gold prints of deities on the wall.…