Glossy wedding photographs adorn the wall in the Yanzhi bar in West Jiefang Street in Changsha, where young women are drinking cocktails and cans of German beer.
In this gay bar, you are just as likely to hear references to “comrade” as you are at a Communist Party meeting – “comrade” is common slang for “homosexual”.
“We want to get married,” says Lala. “That picture of that couple, the one with the tuxedo and the wedding dress, that will be us next year, I hope.” Her partner Luo Dan looks on proudly.
Changsha is Chairman Mao Zedong’s ancestral home, a booming metropolis in southern China. Jiefang means “liberation” and this street is a liberated urban experience. Changsha is a party city, where people from the farmlands nearby come to relax.
Lala and Luo Dan opened Yanzhi bar over a year ago and have been a couple for three months. They say attitudes are improving on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues, even in provincial China.
“Three years ago, when people on the street saw us dress like a boy, they would curse at us that we were not a girl or a boy. They talked bad about us. But now, lesbians are more common and people don’t do that any more. The situation is better,” says Luo.
Homosexuality was decriminalised in China in 1997 and in the early 2000s, it was removed from the list of mental illnesses. However the deeply held Chinese belief that children are required to marry and bear offspring to continue the family line means it is still heavily stigmatised.
Outspoken advocate
Every year, at China's rubber- stamp parliament the National People's Congress, the outspoken sex education advocate and sexual equality activist Li Yinhe calls for more gay rights. Every year she is forced to leave the parliament empty-handed.
“We still face big social pressure. It will take China many, many years to legalise gay marriage,” she says.
The Hunan province civil affairs department recently described homosexuality as being “against spiritual civilisation construction” and “in violation of morals”.
“Gays should have the same rights as any other citizens, including the right to marry,” says Xiao Han, head of the Changsha Comrades Association. “The civil affairs ministry says being gay is immoral. Most Chinese people think the same, so we face a lot of pressure.”
In May last year, Xiao (19) was detained for organising a gay pride parade.
The reason he was given was that he had not obtained the necessary permits to hold such an event. He was jailed for 12 days but he insists he had followed the letter of the law and had even sought legal advice.
“The Chinese government has made a lot of progress in the last 10 years, but it needs to make much more progress,” he says. “Gay organisations should be allowed to register, gays should be allowed to get married and the media should report more positively on homosexual issues.”
The social stigma means that gay men marry and have the legally sanctioned one child rather than reveal their sexual orientation.
“If we admit our status, the society doesn’t accept us. If we don’t admit it, that means we will have to marry a woman, which won’t bring happiness to us. There is a case that a civil servant working in Tianjin never gets promoted because of his gay identity. There is even someone in our association got fired.”
In 2012 Cardinal John Tong denounced same-sex marriage in his Christmas message, describing homosexuality as "an intrinsic moral evil", prompting an angry reaction from civil rights activists.
There was more anger when real estate tycoon and outspoken blogger Ren Zhiqiang, writing in his biography, advised his daughter to “refrain from doing drugs and practising homosexual acts”.
Some employers don’t want to hire gays or lesbians, says Lala, although others actively encourage it as they believe that LGBT consumers will spend more money.
“They think this is a big spending group, especially gay men as they make more money than the women,” says Lala. “There are lots of lesbians I know working in the government but they have to hide it or they’ll get fired. Same in the celebrity world.
“In the face of pressure to marry, some lesbians would marry a gay guy,” she adds. “In front of the parents from both sides, they pretend to be a lovely couple. In reality, they are nothing and the marriage doesn’t exist.”
Changing attitudes
While it is widely anticipated that change will take generations, attitudes are changing.
One of the biggest movies last year was director Xue Xiaolu's romantic comedy Finding Mr Right , which tells of a house in Seattle where Chinese women go to have their babies for various reasons, including the one-child policy. Although it is not explicitly mentioned, one of the couples having a baby in the film is lesbian.
The scene where a lesbian couple embrace their child indicates a growing tolerance. Lala would like to see more of this humanity.
"We should show more movies like Finding Mr Right so the parents can see them and understand there is still love between gays or lesbians and we still have feelings."
