China's first gay student group

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BEIJING, Nov 17 (Reuters) The official registration of China's first gay student group at a university in southern China has been hailed by academics and denounced by some parents, state media reported today.

The ''Rainbow Group'' at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, capital of China's southern Guangdong province ''will study homosexuality and oppose sexual discrimination'', the Shanghai Daily quoted Ai Xiaoming, the group's tutor and a professor at the university, as saying.

''It's wonderful to see the Rainbow Group set up because it shows that a state university in China has given way to students with different sexual orientation and is willing to hear their voice,'' Ai said.

Li Yinhe, an outspoken Chinese sociologist who was criticised by state family planning officials for endorsing wife-swapping as a ''normal kind of entertainment'' at a sexual forum in Guangzhou last year, said it was a ''landmark event'' and an indication of ''historical progress'' on her blog, the paper reported.

The group, however, has alarmed some students' parents.

''I believe parents are just as worried about gays as they are about sexual liberation,'' Xue Yong, a parent said.

''If anyone in my daughter's university dares to give a lecture advocating new types of sexual relations and attacking traditional family values, I will sue the university,'' he said.

Homosexuality was regarded as a mental illness as late as 2001 in China, and despite growing tolerance in recent years, gay people remain under heavy pressure within traditional families to stay in the closet.

The Rainbow Club follows the establishment of China's first free clinic for gays, providing tests for AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, in Beijing last week.

A disease control centre in Beijing also opened the country's first official online gay chatroom, local media reported in August, but few people had posted on it.