Being gay in China or Tibet

Manse: A Chinese gay magazine

Given current debates about China and Tibet, what stances do both societies have on LGBT issues?

Before Communist China occupied it in 1948, Tibet was a theocracy, ruled by a monastic hierarchy, whose population growth tended to be low, given the high proportion of celibate Buddhist monks and nuns in the mountainous Himalayan nation. The current Dalai Lama believes that lesbian and gay sex are closed to his school of Buddhism, in which they are depicted as “bad” forms of sexual contact, although monogamous heterosexual recreational sex with birth control is okay. However, it should be noted that he acknowledges that there is global Buddhist debate on the subject, does not claim infallibility, although from this perspective, lesbian and gay Buddhists are not “good” Buddhists. He also stated he did not believe that homosexuality should be subject to criminal sanctions.

As for China, it had a rich tradition of male homoerotic literature, with accompanying candid artwork. Emperors, nobility, civil servants and peasants all embraced same sex love, especially in cases of exemplary spousal fidelity between partners and otherwise virtuous ethical conduct. Taoism and Chinese Buddhism didn’t concern themselves about regulating gay sex, and while Confucianism was puritanical and family oriented, it was only intermittently so.

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