International gay day in Beijing
An event celebrating an “International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia” (IDAHO) was held last night at Beijing’s Café Copy in the Today Art Gallery, and was organized by the British Em-bassy and Queer Comrades, a Beijing-based LGBT awareness group.
“We are delighted that the embassy could support this evening’s event,” said Chris Wood, deputy British ambassador to China. “Human rights apply to all people, regardless of sexual orientation.”
The deputy ambassador went on to explain that IDAHO events separate themselves from other LGBT events by focusing on issues of discrimination, rather than focusing on individuals being able to find happiness with who they really are.
Held annually in more than 50 countries worldwide, IDAHO seeks to promote an “ideal of a world without homophobia or transphobia,” according to a notice on the organization’s official website.
Last night’s event also saw the debut of a short documentary produced by Queer Comrades, The Story of Mr Gay China, which provided an in-depth look at the events leading up to the cancellation of China’s first gay beauty pageant.
Speaking at the conclusion of the film, Xiao Geng, one of the film’s producers and co-founder of Queer Comrades, told attendees that the documentary was made to bring awareness to issues facing China’s LGBT community.
“We really need your help and support in forwarding our cause,” said Geng. “The Inter-net is still a gray area and the laws governing it are still not clear. But our website is careful and employs a lot of self censorship to make sure we don’t push the envelope too far.”
Ryan Dutcher, an organizer for Mr Gay China, said that coverage of the event in Chinese media had been very positive in the days leading up to its abrupt cancelation. But once it had been shut down, he said, the reporting went negative.
“Chinese media suddenly started saying that [the organizers] had disappeared and run off with all the money, which wasn’t true,” Dutcher told reporters.
This year’s worldwide IDAHO theme was chosen as “Homophobia in Sports,” but organizers in Beijing chose to focus on “Representations of LGBT people in Chinese Media.”
“This year’s IDAHO is about sports,” an embassy insider told the Global Times, “but that’s not what the organizers were really interested in covering.”
“The British embassy has been using international days as a means of getting their message about human rights out to people,” the insider added.
Beijing’s IDAHO event drew a crowd of more than 80 individuals and representatives of various international and China-based organizations.
By By Andrew Tait , www.globaltimes.cn
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