Many lament loss after Chinese magazine for gay, AIDS-affected communities closes
by Xinhua writer Yang Dingdu
BEIJING, July 20 (Xinhua) — A retired colonel in China’s armed police force and a gay, Zhang Guowei was delighted to find an extra-thick copy of “Friend Exchange” had arrived one morning after returning from his morning exercises.
He had been a subscriber to the magazine for the homosexual and AIDS-affected communities since 2001.
But on opening the package tears welled in Zhang’s eyes. The words “Final Issue” were printed on the magazine cover.
“It was like my best friend suddenly bid me farewell.” [ The only Chinese magazine providing mental support and AIDS prevention advice to the gay community, “Friend Exchange” has published its final issue after its main sponsor, the Ford Foundation, ended its financial support of the bimonthly.
When Joan Kaufman, reproductive health program officer of Ford Foundation China Office first came to China in the 1996, she found homosexuality was highly stigmatized and not acknowledged by the society, and there were no obvious support groups to engage in the effort.
Then in 1998 Kaufman heard about Zhang Beichuan and “Friend Exchange”, a small magazine passed hand to hand, and decided to offer financial support. Ford Foundation has decided to switch its assistance to other countries in Southeast Asia and Africa because it regards China already too wealthy for such aids.
Copies of the last issue of “Friend Exchange” have been sent to its readers – members of the MSM community (men who have sex with men), AIDS sufferers, experts, journalists, officials and social activists, said the magazine’s publisher and editor Zhang Beichuan, a renowned expert on homosexual studies.
Each print run of 15,000 copies had cost about 500,000 yuan (73,800 U.S. dollars). The magazine was publicly praised by several senior Chinese officials, including former vice minister of health Wang Longde and Wu Zunyou, head of the AIDS prevention department at China’s CDC.
“It is hard to imagine China’s AIDS response and the MSM community without the magazine and the respected and neutral role it played in an often fractious environment,” Kaufman, also a scholar with Harvard Medical School, said.
In China, the government is the almost exclusive provider of public services and since 2002 the China CDC has done an admirable job in tackling many sensitive AIDS-related issues, Kaufman said.
However, the government’s effort, while necessary, are unfortunately insufficient to prevent HIV infections among MSM and other marginalized and stigmatized groups, she said.
MSM HIV infections account for 32.5 percent of all HIV cases and MSM is one of the highest incidence cohorts in China’s still expanding AIDS epidemic, according to Ministry of Health statistics.
China had 740,000 HIV-positive people at the end of 2009. New infections declined from 70,000 in 2005 to 48,000 last year on government prevention measures.
Friend Exchange has successfully fulfilled its mission, promoting knowledge, encouraging gay men and other stigmatized people and helping the society to understand the community, said Pan Suiming, head of the Institute for Research of Sexology and Gender at Renmin University.
In today’s China, gay men have become much more recognized by the society and government. In most cities, the gay community has come out of the underground world, said Tong Ge, president of China’s Gay Health Forum.
But Qiu Renzong, a renowned ethics scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences believes the closure of ‘Friend Exchange’ is untimely. “In fact, we need more publications like ‘Friend Exchange’ to fight the discrimination and stigmatization of AIDS sufferers and other marginalized risky groups.”
“I felt sad when I received the last issue. For years, I have been learning from the magazine, quoting its stories to comfort fellow sufferers,” said AIDS activist Murong Feng, who is gay and HIV positive.
Birte Seffert, a scholar at Free University of Berlin medical school Charite, has been sharing the stories from “Friend Exchange” with her students and friends at a NGO group in Berlin.
“Through ‘Friend Exchange,’ we saw progress in Chinese society and we continued to learn about the MSM community and AIDS-prevention work in China,” she said.
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