In what has been seen as a landmark case for same-sex rights in China, a judge in the central province of Hunan has denied a gay couple the right to marry legally.
Scores of supporters gathered in Changsha city as Sun Wenlin (27) and Hu Mingliang (37) entered the courtroom. Unusually, about 100 supporters were allowed into the courtroom to witness the first recorded case in China's legal history where a same-sex couple had sought the right to marry through legal means.
While there is a growing awareness of lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual issues in China, LGBT people continue to face discrimination.
As far as the statute books go, homosexuality was decriminalised in China in 1997, a few years after Ireland. In the early 2000s it was removed from the list of mental illnesses. But the deeply held Chinese belief that children are required to marry and bear offspring to continue the family line means homosexuality is still heavily stigmatised.
Changsha is a ground-breaking city for gay rights. In 2013 a 19-year-old gay activist was detained for organising a pride parade.
Mr Sun said he was “quite disappointed” with the result but was “very pleased to see that so many people showed up today in court to give their support”, and vowed to continue to fight for the right to marry.
Mr Sun and Mr Hu went to the marriage registration office in Changsha in June last year but were rejected in their bid for a registered or licensed marriage certificate by the officials, who said the laws did not allow gay marriages and only a man and a woman could get married.
The couple’s efforts to argue the point with the officials failed, so they hired a lawyer to help them file a lawsuit against the civil affairs bureau of Changsha’s Furong district in December last year.
Mr Sun argued that China’s marriage law stated what kind of marriages were legal, but did not state what was not allowed.
“The marriage law stresses freedom and equality. It mentions what kind of marriage is legal, but it is illogical to deduce that other kinds of marriage are thus illegal,” Mr Sun told local media back in January.
A trial had originally been scheduled for January, but two before the scheduled date, it was postponed to April 13th.
According to China’s leading sexologist, Li Yinhe, LGBT people account for more than four per cent of China’s population. Every year, Ms Li tries to convince the annual parliament, the National People’s Congress, to back same-sex marriage and every year she leaves the Great Hall of the People empty-handed.
Earlier this week, a labour arbitration board in southern China was set to hear the country’s first transgender job discrimination case after a man who was born a woman alleges he was fired for wearing men’s clothes.
