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April 04, 2007

Chinese Web site to launch show on gay issues with gay host

Chinese Web site to launch show on gay issues with gay host

On Thursday a Chinese Web site will launch the weekly hour-long Internet TV show Tongxing Xianglian, or Connecting Homosexuals, on www.phoenixtv.com, producer Gang Gang said in a phone interview with the Associated Press. The Web site is run by the same media company that runs the Phoenix satellite TV station. Clips from the online show will be aired on satellite TV..

While gay people have appeared on Chinese TV shows, this will be the first show to focus on gay issues and the first to have an openly gay host, AIDS activist Didier Zheng. The Beijing-based show is meant to improve public understanding of Chinese gays, Gang said, adding, "There are many people in China's gay community, but people don't have a deep enough understanding about this community. This community faces a lot of trouble and difficulties. They face a lot of pressure."

Gay people were persecuted after China's 1949 Communist revolution and condemned as products of decadent Western and feudal societies. Official attitudes gradually have changed since the late 1980s, and in 2001 the China Psychiatric Association stopped listing homosexuality as a mental illness.

The new show will explore homosexuality from legal, parental, and sociological perspectives, dealing with issues like same-sex marriage, Gang said. The program will also feature a friend-matching segment.

It remains to be seen if the new show will face censorship. Though the Communist government promotes Internet use, it has also set up an extensive surveillance and filtering system to prevent Chinese from accessing material considered obscene or politically subversive.

Zheng, 27, pursued graduate studies in psychology at the Sorbonne and is now an activist at the Chi Heng Foundation, which works with AIDS orphans and promotes AIDS prevention. "I hope to convey my love in caring for gays, my hopes for them to get better recognition in society," he said.

Gang noted that gays in China face less discrimination than in the West, where criticism of gays stems from Christian beliefs. "The pressure comes more from the Chinese problem of saving face," he said. (Min Lee, AP)

© 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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