Parental pressures have led to a growing trend of sham marriages in China amongst the country’s gay and lesbian community.
Reports say online forums now allow gay men and lesbians to advertise themselves as a potential partner.
Sham marriages are the result of persistent pressure from Chinese parents who want their children to marry.
On weekends, chinese parents converge in city parks for ‘marriage markets’, where they hope to meet other parents whose child might be the one.
But one Chinese mother has brought China’s dismal gay rights record to the fore, challenging the homophobic attitudes still prevalent.
Wu Youjian or ‘Mama Wu’ to media outlets and the gay community, has been campaigning in the south Asian country since her teenage son came out to her five years ago.
Homosexuality was decriminalised in the 1990s and was removed from the country’s list of officially recognised mental disorders in 2001.
The 63-year-old told CNN of her reaction after her son came out to her in 1999.
‘I told him, there’s nothing wrong with liking boys and it’s no big deal,’ she said.
Five years after her son, Zheng Yuantao came out to her, he discussed his sexuality on local television in the southern metropolis of Guangzhou.
Wu followed and became the first Chinese parent to go on television in support of her gay child.
The 63-year-old also writes a blog which has clocked more than 2.2 million hits and founded China’s first PFLAG – Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays – group in her home town.
Wu’s example inspired several other parents to take the stage with their gay children at the second annual Shanghai Pride Festival held last month.
She said it didn’t matter if their children were straight or gay since ‘they are always our children’.
‘I have only one child, but so many call me Mama,’ she said.
