LGBT event cancelled in China

A LGBT conference has been cancelled in China's Xi'an because the city "does not welcome gay people", a media report said today.

The activity organised by Speak Out, a Chinese LGBT organisation, was supposed to start on Sunday. However, it was "cancelled" after a warning was received from the local government, said "Matthew," the Chinese founder of the organisation, state-run Global Times reported.

The conference aims to eliminate discrimination against LGBT groups and let the group's voice be heard by more people, according to the organisation's website.

The group has been organising these events regularly in different cities since 2014, including in Xi'an in 2015.
 

As they were planning the event, their bookings of venues were cancelled a number of times for various reasons, and the organisation finally decided to "cancel the activity" on Saturday night, Matthew said.

Moreover, Matthew said that some members of the organisation were held incommunicado for eight hours from 7 am on Sunday, because the local government and police took them for questioning.

An employee from Xi'an public security bureau told the Global Times yesterday that they are not aware of the situation, and no one was available at the local government office for comment as it was a public holiday.

Matthew claimed that he and his colleagues were warned that "gay activities cannot be held in Xi'an anymore," and "Xi'an does not welcome gays."

Gay culture has increasingly become prevalent in China in recent years.

Although there are no official statistics, it is estimated that China has 50 million to 70 million people who are identified as LGBT.

Last November, a survey carried in the the 'Global Times' noted that some 70 per cent of the LGBT respondents lived in second-tier or other less developed cities like Chengdu and Chongqing in Southwest China.

The LGBT communities in those cities are increasingly more confident and open to the public, the survey had said.

A survey entitled 'Being LGBT in China - A National Survey on Social Attitudes towards Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Gender Expression', implemented by the United Nations Development Programme, Peking University's Sociology Department and the Beijing LGBT Center in 2016, showed that many LGBT people in China live in the shadows, with only 5 per cent willing to come out, the report said.

It found that the majority of LGBT people continue to face discrimination, most importantly within the family, where the deepest forms of rejection and abuse reside, followed by schools and the workplace.