A lesbian has charged the Chinese government to court over 'derogatory' comments about homosexuality in a textbook.
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Qiu Bai, a Chinese lesbian on Tuesday took the government to court over textbooks describing homosexuality as a “psychological disorder”, a landmark case in a country where discrimination remains common.
AFP reports that 21-year-old Bai, who is a student at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, brought the action against the ministry of education, demanding that it give her details of how it approved materials and how they could be changed.
Qiu’s team showed displayed a manual, “Student Psychological Health”, published in 2015 by the prestigious Renmin University and distributed to students nationwide.
The manual reads: “The most commonly encountered forms of sexual deviance are homosexuality and the sick addictions of transvestism, transsexuality, fetishism, sadism, voyeurism and exhibitionism.”
Other psychology textbooks had similar content.
Qiu, who uses a pseudonym for fear of being victimised, told AFP that she hoped to make sure such materials “no longer harm students”, adding that she had come under pressure from her university over the case, but it had been mitigated by coverage in Chinese media.
Holding a large rainbow flag, she said she was “excited” by her “first opportunity to have a face-to-face dialogue with the ministry of education”.
Supporters brandished signs outside the Fengtai district court in Beijing reading: “We want a fair judgement” and “Homosexuals must gain visibility”.
Peng Yanhui, director of the non-profit LGBT Rights Advocacy, based in the southern city revealed that: “Of the 90 textbooks available in the libraries of Guangzhou, 42 percent present homosexuality as a disease or abnormality.”