Chinese Student Sues Over Homophobic Textbook
A 20-year-old Chinese university student has sued academic book publisher Jinan University Press and its retail platform for calling homosexuality a “psychological disorder.” The case, which was heard in a court in the eastern province of Jiangsu on July 28 after being adjourned three times, is being seen as a landmark lawsuit regarding homophobic content in China.
The plaintiff, Xixi (西西), did not appear in court as a result of Covid-19 travel restrictions, however she did submit written opinions. “It has been three years since this case was filed. As a LGBTQ+ student, every time I see textbooks calling homosexuality a psychological disorder, I still feel deeply hurt,” she wrote. “Even though homosexuality is not classified as a mental illness in China anymore, there are still people producing false knowledge, therefore increasing the stigma around it.”
It is not easy to challenge textbooks in China, which are usually published by powerful publishing houses. After the case was filed in July 2017, Xixi and a group of volunteers collected evidence regarding the textbook to qualify the claim of “poor quality” in the lawsuit.
This is not the first time that LGBTQ+ communities have taken to the courts in order to address discriminatory language in Chinese textbooks. Back in 2015 and 2016, a college student named Qiu Bai took China’s Ministry of Education to court three times over its failure to respond to her complaints against anti-LGBTQ+ terms used in academic textbooks. Although the court heard the suit, Qiu’s efforts were ultimately unsuccessful.
For more background on this case - and others involving LGBTQ+ rights in China - hit Read More at the bottom of this post.
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