Chinese Court Faces Backlash For Ruling Homosexuality ‘A Mental Disorder’
March 4, 2021A court in China is facing backlash from the LGBT+ community and its advocates after it ruled that homosexuality could be described as a ‘mental disorder’.
The case was brought to the Suqian Intermediate People’s Court in the eastern province of Jiangsu after 24-year-old Ou Jiayong, who also uses the name Xixi, came across a psychology textbook that described being gay as a mental disorder.
Jiayong came across the 2013 edition of Mental Health Education for College Students in 2016, during her first year of study at the South China Agricultural University in Guangzhou, Guangdong province.
According to ‘Unilad’, the book lists homosexuality under ‘common psychosexual disorders’, along with cross-dressing and fetishism. It further states that homosexuality “was believed to be a disruption of love and sex or perversion of the sex partner”.
The textbook is used by a number of Chinese universities, and Jiayong decided to take action as she worried it perpetuated the belief that being gay is wrong. In 2017, she sued the publisher and the online retailer that stocks the book, demanding that it remove the description and give a public apology.
Jiayong argued that the book was “poor quality work” as it used the description despite having no scientific evidence to back it up, but last year the Suyu District People’s Court in Suqian ruled in favour of the publishing house, saying that Jiayong’s issue with the description were down to a difference of opinion, rather than a factual error.
Jiayong appealed against the ruling in November, at which point the Suqian Intermediate People’s Court looked at the case. In a ruling handed down last week, the court upheld the previous judgement, claiming the description was an “academic view”.
The 24-year-old, who works as a social worker, slammed the decision and claimed it was “random and baseless”.
Per The South China Morning Post, she commented, “Maybe this ruling is to reduce controversy. But it has also allowed textbooks that pathologise homosexuality to continue circulating, which is a pity.”
Jiayong plans to work with other people in the LGBT+ community to see if there’s any more they can do to tackle the description.
Ah Qiang, spokesperson for PFLAG, a local peer support group for families and friends of the queer community, also criticised the court’s ruling, saying, “The editor of the textbook apparently used viewpoints that do not match society’s perception of sexual minorities today.”
Homosexuality was decriminalised in China in 1997 and removed from a list of mental illnesses in 2001, more than a decade after the World Health Organisation declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder.
Homosexuals who are “discordant with themselves” or who feel anxious or depressed because of their sexuality are still listed in the official Chinese Classification of Mental Disorders.
Read related myGwork articles here:
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A Brief History of Queer China
Author in China Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison for Writing Gay Sex Scene
British Hospital Removes Sign Listing LGBT+ As A “Mental Health Disorder”
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