From the Chair

Dear fellow Tongzhis:

In February this year, the CRA board approved new incentives for CRA members.

For our monthly potluck parties, members who do not bring a dish has to pay $4 at the door, and non-members $6. VIP and life-time members may come to these parties for free for 1 year or for life, respectively, if they wish.

Newcomers who pay their dues on the day they attend such a party are admitted free for that same day even if they don't bring a dish.

Renewal dues can be paid by cash or check. A receipt for cash payment, if desired, can be obtained from the board member who's collecting the dues.

There will be other incentives coming. Please be sure to join and support our organization so we can have a strong and financially solvent association.

Respectfully,

Andre' T.

THE BEST EARLY CHRISTMAS PRESENT

by Andre' T.

It was in November 2000. Mother in her 80s had fallen earlier in August and broken her thigh bone. Four months after her surgery, she was much better, though never quite like before her fall.

My oldest brother James came down from Sacramento to visit her in Monterey Park. I hadn't seen him for almost a year. We chatted as usual in my mom's house. Then we went out for dinner. Earlier I had had the urge to come out to him. I had brought along my CRA business card and some past CRA newsletters.

Like me, he was born in China but grew up in Hong Kong. After his college education, he got married and had three kids. He came to California for his graduate studies. Now two of his are fully grown.

Over dinner that November night, I told him I had voted for Al Gore. He said he voted for Ralph Nader. (A good sign.) I showed him my CRA business card and told him I am the chair and it is a gay organization. He didn't even blink.

Then he started to tell me that he is open-minded and all was cool. I didn't quite believe him. He then told me a story, trying, I guess, to illustrate his thinking. When he was in the graduate school of the California State University at Sacramento in the l970s, he was the chair of the Chinese student organization there. At the University of California at Davis, there was also a Chinese student association whose chair was a known gay. Some of his organization's members objected to associating with the Davis' chapter. But he tried to convince those members that one's sexual orientation shouldn't have been an issue. With that story, my brother convinced me that he was not homophobic.

I handed him some past CRA newsletters, many with my articles in them. He read with interest. Then he actually asked me if he could join CRA. I told him it is only for local people. But I promised him I would send him future issues of the Rainbow News and I would keep him informed of our future activities. He also took the past issues with him.

That night I felt so good that I wanted to hug him. I felt that after drifting apart for so many long years, we have again grown close together. We had shared a part of our inner selves. We had rekindled our brotherly love.

I had taken a risk, and it paid off.

Of course, in retrospect, I needn't really worry. I hadn't done anything wrong for being gay. We cannot choose our sexual orientation, just as we cannot choose our biological families. Homophobia, on the other hand, is a sickness, a form of neurosis. Homophobic people can get enlightened and change. It is their decision, not ours.

Still, it was great that someone close to me turned out to be understanding and supportive. It was a perfect early Christmas present that I had last year.

Shifting Gears From ABC News

China Takes Homosexuality Off List of Mental Illnesses

The Chinese Psychiatric Association says new guidelines, to be issued next month, will no longer classify homosexuality as a pathological condition.

The new standards say homosexual behavior is not to be considered abnormal.

Those who are fine with being gay have no need for psychiatric help, said Chen Yanfang, the vice-chairman of the Chinese Psychiatric Association's standing committee.

But he added that same-sex desires could still be considered a mental disorder for those unhappy with being gay.

The change marks a significant turnaround for China's mental-health establishment, which, as recently as 1994, opposed World Health Organization standards calling for acceptance of homosexuality.

Western governments removed homosexuality from their lists of mental illnesses decades ago.

A Small Step Forward

The news pleased gay rights advocates. "This is progress," said Chinese-born Li Ma, a former project coordinator at the Asian & Pacific Islanders Coalition on HIV/AIDS in New York.

"I think it means that we'll have more understanding," she said.

The association decided to make the revision upon recommendation of a task force which spent five years overhauling China's classifications of mental illness. The recommendation was unanimously approved by the psychiatric association's standing committee last month.

In China, homosexuals have often been ostracized by the community, and the emergence of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s made them even more unwelcome.

Sometimes, they are avoided as if they have a communicable disease, said Li, and sometimes people throw stones at them.

Although homosexuality has never been declared illegal in China, authorities have seized homosexuals for sundry charges — especially in the era of stringent conformity that followed the communist takeover of 1949.

A Changing China

But as China becomes increasingly Westernized, and the cities on the country's eastern coast become richer and more populous, an underground gay and lesbian community is developing.

Nearly all of China's major cities have at least one gay and lesbian bar, and the Internet has expanded the community by providing it with an easy and anonymous gathering place.

Traditional literature is also full of references to male and female homosexuality, where it was viewed as harmless unless it interfered with one's duty to have a family.

In the past 20 years, the Communist government has been more forgiving as well — so long as gays and lesbians do not openly challenge the regime.

Still, Li says it will be a while before any real change happens in the everyday lives of Chinese gays and lesbians. "The change is from the top, but most people you see, they won't change that quickly," she said.