Shanghai Journal Gay Festival in China Pushes Official Boundaries New York Times
SHANGHAI — It was shortly after the “hot body” contest and just before a painted procession of Chinese opera singers took the stage that the police threatened to shut down China’s first gay pride festival. The authorities had already forced the cancellation of a play, a film screening and a social mixer, so when an irritated plainclothes officer arrived at the Saturday afternoon gala and flashed his badge, organizers feared the worst.
After some fraught negotiations, Hannah Miller, an American teacher who helped put together the weeklong festival, agreed to limit the crowds, keep the noise down and, most important, “not let anything happen that might embarrass the government,” she explained after returning from the impromptu sidewalk meeting. “That was a close call,” she said.
Crisis averted, the party continued.
And so it went for Shanghai Pride week, a delicately orchestrated series of private events that revealed how far China’s gay community had come, and how much further it had to go. In the 12 years since homosexuality was decriminalized in China, there has been an unmistakable blossoming of gay life, even if largely underground. Most big cities have gay bars, and social networking sites ease the isolation of those living in China’s rural hinterland. Antigay violence is virtually unheard of.
But official tolerance has its limits. Gay publications and plays are banned, gay Web sites are occasionally blocked and those who try to advocate for greater legal protections for lesbians and gay men sometimes face harassment from the police. For years, movie buffs in Beijing have tried, and failed, to get permission for a gay film festival.
This month, public security officials forced Wan Yanhai, a prominent advocate on gay issues, including AIDS, to leave Beijing for a week because they feared he might cause trouble during the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.
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Shanghai gay pride: the show goes on
A colourful show of drag queens dressed in Chinese opera costumes was one of the festivities that marked Shanghai’s gay pride on Saturday, the first in China where homosexuality remains largely hidden.
A “Big Bash” barbecue Saturday — billed as the highlight of the week-long festival — went ahead as planned in a bar despite previous last-minute event cancellations by local authorities that marred the “Shanghai Pride.”
Drag and fashion shows and a ‘hot body’ competition took place at Cotton’s bar attended by at least 500 people, in a garden that was hidden from view by a rainbow banner covering the surrounding fence.
Later Saturday night, two fake gay marriages were to take place before people were ferried onto buses to go to an afterparty at a bar on Shanghai’s famous Bund promenade.
“We would have liked the whole week to go without cancellations, but today everything has happened as we wanted it to, so we’re happy,” said Kenneth Tan, spokesman for organisers Shanghai LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgender).
Events for “Shanghai Pride” have been organised at private venues without a public parade — in stark contrast to similar events elsewhere in the world — to avoid attracting unwanted official attention.
But still, city authorities forced the cancellation of a film screening and a play during the festival, and the two venues hosting the “Big Bash” events Saturday had received calls from officials, according to Tan.
He said police had come to Cotton’s Saturday where expatriates and Chinese people mingled but soon left.
Liu Yang, a 27-year-old Chinese homosexual who was enjoying the shows Saturday, said he was amazed by the festival.
“I’ve never been abroad, and I have really wondered how such an event could take place so smoothly — I’m really nicely surprised,” he said.
See Shanghai gay pride: the show goes on AFP - 4
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Gay pride invitation goes sour Albany Times Union
ALBANY — A local woman whose vandalized Volkswagen launched her on a career as a gay activist welcomed nationwide as a speaker, often in conjunction with a documentary film she made about her experiences, will not be in the Capital Region for this weekend’s gay pride festival because of a dispute with event organizers.
The activist, Erin Davies, blames the Capital Pride Committee, a group of community volunteers and staffers of the Capital District Gay & Lesbian Community Council, for scuttling an Albany showing of her award-winning documentary, “Fagbug.”
Accepted at dozens of film festivals in the U.S. and abroad, the movie will be shown tonight, the date originally planned. But the screening has been moved from a 250-seat theater at the State Museum to the Photography Center of the Capital District in Troy, where it will be shown in a room that seats approximately 20.
“They tried to bribe and threaten me, but I wouldn’t let them and just found another place,” said Davies, 31. She alleges that anonymous members of the committee thought her $10 suggested ticket price for the museum screening was too high and vowed to remove the showing from Capital Pride listings unless she lowered it. Davies makes her living with paid speaking engagements and film screenings; the admission price was meant to offset some of the difference between what she normally receives for appearances and the $500 fee she had agreed to for the museum event, she said.
Organizers and other people involved in discussions with Davies dispute her account of what happened and characterize Davies as having a martyr complex that led her to exaggerate routine, if frustrating, negotiations into antagonism and personal attacks.
“We absolutely support (the screening). It’s always been one of our events,” said Nora Yates, executive director of the community council. The screening was included in printed calendars and is mentioned, with its new Troy location, on the community council’s Web site. Founded in 1970, the CDGLCC, believed to be the oldest such continuously operating group in the country, is the prime force behind the 11-day, 34-event Capital Pride 2009 observance that culminates with Sunday’s pride parade and festival in Washington Park.
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Albany Times Union
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China bans parts of gay festival
The organisers of China’s first Gay Pride Festival have been told to cancel two of their sessions.
The news came on the very day a state-run newspaper described the Shanghai festival as of “profound significance”.
Officials have warned the owners of two venues planning to hold a play and a film screening they would face “severe consequences” if they went ahead.
Homosexuality was illegal in China until 1997, and officials described it as a mental illness until 2001. See China bans parts of gay festival
BBC News
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