Expats help the push for greater LGBT rights

Partygoers at an LGBT event held in a bar in Shanghai in 2009.

"In North America, a lot of religious values are attached to gayness, but in China you don't really have that," the 28-year-old said, adding that although she is happy to show some degree of public intimacy with her fiancee in Beijing, she doesn't do so in smaller cities. "It was not that we were afraid. I just felt it would make people there uncomfortable.

"I once conducted some street interviews, and a lot of people said, 'I don't have an opinion on gay people, but I don't know any.' They probably don't know that some of their friends are gay. It also reflects Chinese culture a little, because even if people feel uncomfortable, they won't say so to your face," she said.

The existence of homosexuality in China has been well documented since ancient times. Adult, consensual, non-commercial same-sex behavior was decriminalized in 1997, and homosexuality was removed from the Ministry of Health's list of mental illnesses four years later. However, China still doesn't recognize same-sex marriage.

According to a 2013 survey of LGBT people conducted by Aibai Culture & Education Center in Beijing, 93 percent of the 2,161 respondents said they were not fully out in their workplace, because they feared discrimination or a negative impact on their careers. Respondents who worked for the government or State-owned enterprises expressed a greater degree of concern than those in private and multinational companies.

However, as a sign of the changing times, the first annual China LGBT Talent Job Fair was held in Shanghai in April, and attracted 17 companies and 400 Chinese job-seekers.

Familymatters

While Chinese LGBT people are increasingly prepared to come out to their friends and even colleagues, they find it much harder to tell their parents, especially given that most of them are the only child of the family and are expected to continue the bloodline.

Born into a Chinese-Malaysian family in Penang, Malaysia, Raymond Phang, 24, has been in a relationship with Shanghai native Ariel (not his real name) for four years. Whenever he travels back to Malaysia, Phang brings gifts for his boyfriend's parents, but neither man has come out to their families. "They might have already sensed what's going on between us, but I don't think it's necessary to speak to them about it and make them face it directly," Ariel said.

Jack Smith, from the United Kingdom, and his Chinese husband, Eddy (not his real name), met online in 2009, when Smith was studying in Beijing and Eddy was at college in the UK.

Last year, they tied the knot in the northern English city of York, Smith's hometown. The ceremony was attended by Eddy's parents and one of his cousins, plus more than 100 friends and well-wishers.

"The fact that his parents were there meant so much to us. They (the two sets of parents) didn't speak the same language, but they seemed to get along well and laughed a lot," Smith said.

Although they travel to Eddy's small hometown to visit his parents every two months, the couple has not yet come out to the whole family, and he is still concerned that being openly gay in public and the media could result in "unnecessary annoyance" for his parents.