Capital of China's LGBTQ+ world, tolerant Chengdu is nicknamed ‘Gaydu’: a relaxed and inclusive free port where one can live one's homosexuality openly. An exception in a still deeply conservative country
'My family insists that I find a woman and get married. But I am gay and if they don't accept me, I will leave home forever'. Sitting in a circle with other men, Yang tells his story in a tea room in Chengdu, south-central China. It is Saturday afternoon, and like every week, some members of Ai Bai, an association for the defence of homosexual rights, get together to discuss their problems.
They do so in the right city: the vibrant and inclusive Chengdu - twenty million inhabitants and a strong liberal economy - has for years been considered the capital of China's LGBTQ+ world. So much so that it has been ironically nicknamed ‘Gaydu’: a relaxed and tolerant free port, populated by dozens of queer nightclubs and gay-friendly saunas, rights groups and non-profits that raise awareness of the HIV danger (the Sichuan region, of which Chengdu is the capital, has held the record for infection for years). ‘We are far away from Beijing, the political centre of the nation,’ explains Dake Wu of the Tongle association, ‘and that is why we enjoy greater freedom. Of course, coming out in China is not easy and this remains a conservative country based on family continuity. Here in Chengdu, however, we are used to not giving a damn.'
Persecuted in Mao Zedong's time, homosexuality has been legal in China since 1997 and was removed from the list of mental illnesses in 2001. But it remains a sensitive issue, generating hostility from a government that does its utmost not to talk about it. In this sense, cosy Chengdu is a happy island: the greater freedom in customs and the presence of alternative subcultures led to the first same-sex unions here more than ten years ago. ‘They were symbolic unions, gay marriages are still banned in China,’ explains Yu Hong Yuan, who started the transition from man to woman, ‘but things are slowly changing and Chengdu will lead the way for the whole country.’
