China Outlaws Meterosexual Role Models

Chinese authorities ordered TV presenters to refrain from wearing 'bizarre clothes and strange or coloured hairstyles' this week, in a new crackdown against Western style 'unhealthy influences'.

"The rule intends to reduce the negative impact of queer dressing and behaviour on youngsters," Shanghai Culture minister Xu Chaihua reportedly told local press, adding that similar regulations had existed before, though had never been previously implemented (The Guardian).

The new regulations could prompt a renewed police crackdown on the estimated 15million gays in China despite homosexuality being officially legal, judging by practises in recent years.

"Gays and lesbians are vulnerable to unofficial oppression, police harassment, and arrest for various offences," French press agency Agence France-Presse reported in 2001.

"Arrests are especially prevalent during the "strike hard" periods" (Government-led crackdowns "connected with vice and immorality".)

Despite the authorities renewed anti-queer stance, a report in the Washington Post in 2000 suggested most ordinary Chinese people are relatively tolerant of gays, compared to attitudes in certain places in the West.

"We don't see gays being beaten to death in our country because of their sexuality," a doctor who'd studied gay Chinese culture for 10 years told the Post.

"At the same time, we don't have gay and lesbian parades," he added.
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