Self-identification among gay men in ChinaĩResearch in the United States shows that gay men often do not reveal their sexual identity to outsiders out of a fear of persecution, discrimination and rejection. However, strongly associating gay issues with the AIDS crisis might also stigmatise entire communities and heighten discrimination against them. During recent years, MSM or homosexual issues have been receiving social recognition from the media. It includes male homosexuals and male heterosexuals who have sex with men, even though the majority of this MSM group are still considered male homosexuals by the public.
The concept of MSM is different from that of male homosexuals, as MSM is based upon sexual behaviour rather than sexual orientation. The acronym MSM, “men who have sex with men”, has been used to refer to this group in the West since the mid-1990s and is now being widely used among those conducting AIDS/STD or risk behaviour research in China. In order to succeed in AIDS prevention, government organisations and NGOs began reaching out to men who have sex with men. Tongzhi has also gained wide acceptance among overseas Chinese communities (including Hong Kong and Taiwan) and movements targeting gay rights in China 9.ĦAs in the West, the AIDS crisis provided a major impetus for the tongzhi movement in China.
Zhou argued that tongxing’ai or tongxinglian are the labels structured by hetero-centric hegemonists, and their use will harm the tongzhi communities and the tongzhi movement 8. This term has appeared in such books as those written by Hong Kong sociologist Zhou Huashan 7. On the other hand, many authors choose to borrow the Chinese term tongzhi (comrades). However, even with the changing of legal regulations and increasing openness, homosexuals as a group still felt misunderstood and discriminated against.ĥAt the same time, the other important researcher in this field, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences sociologist Li Yinhe, used tongxinglian instead of tongxing’ai, as in some of her books 6. The label of hooliganism under the old Criminal Law, which included sodomy, was abolished in 1997, and in 2001 the Chinese Psychiatry Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders. In 2003, public discussion of homosexuality entered the university curricula in mainland China 3 and received positive feedback from the mainstream mass media and society. Increased indigenous writing about gays and increased media exposure to global and Asian regional gay rights movements led to great changes in the popular understandings and legal treatment of homosexuality in the 1990s. Top of pageĢThe 1980s witnessed small breaks in the taboo on public discussion of homosexuality, and a few journalists and scholars started writing articles and books on homosexuality at that time, though much of this literature was from a medical or mental health perspective in which “treatment” or “prevention” of homosexuality was still the aim 2. In particular, it looks at some of the sociological factors that seem to influence self-revelation outside the gay circle, also the consequences of these patterns of self revelation and concealment for these other types of social relations. It examines the terms men use to describe their sexual orientation, including the nuances that accrue to these terms, stories of how men come to identify themselves as MSM, gay or tongzhi, including their assessment of their sexual orientation, and their different patterns of revealing their sexual identities to different members of their social circles. This paper uses in depth interviews with 30 MSM in Shanghai to discover how they construct and organise their social identities as MSM. Therefore MSM in large Chinese cities now seem to have a greater number of possible models of sexual identification than in the past, as well as a more tolerant atmosphere for revealing their sexual identities in various social contexts. At the same time Chinese in general, as well as MSM themselves, have increasingly also become aware of models of openly tolerated “gay”, “homosexual” or “tongzhi” identities popularised through the media, especially internet media. Chinese men who have sex with men are increasingly aware of public discourses of homosexuality, and have created numerous public spaces in which they can make contact with other Chinese men who have sex with men (MSM).