From tyranny to tolerance: LGBTs in Hong Kong – 150 years of highs and lows

In a place as culturally textured yet socially conservative as Hong Kong, it can be hard to know where the LGBT community stands. The city’s scene is diverse and growing, with Pride marches held each year and a growing reputation as one of the most accepting cities in Asia. Yet there is neither legal recognition of same-sex relationships nor laws to prevent discrimination on the grounds of sexuality or gender. In the third week of World Pride Month, we look at some of the key historical successes, setbacks and cultural highlights Hong Kong’s LGBT community has experienced. 1842: Homosexuality is criminalised when Hong Kong becomes a British colony, mirroring laws of the United Kingdom. 1861: An Offences against the Person Act is introduced, including “unnatural offences” such as sodomy and bestiality, and criminalises sex between men but not between women. 1901: Sodomy between two men is made punishable by a maximum life sentence (though it is not clear whether anyone was ever sentenced). 1974: Sex for Sale, a film directed by Chang Tseng-chai, features the first directly depicted gay character in Hong Kong cinema. 1977: A House is Not A Home airs on TVB, featuring actor Simon Yam Tat-wah playing the gay son of a construction company owner. Despite being a small role, it was the “only major representation of a local gay man [on] television in the 1970s”, according to Travis S.K. Kong in his book Chinese Male Homosexualities. 1979: A petition with 424 signatures is presented to the government urging decriminalisation of sex between two consenting same-sex adults. 1980: Governor Murray MacLehose commissions a report to look into whether homosexuality laws should be changed. Gay Hong Kong policeman John MacLennan is found dead aged 29 with gunshot wounds in what’s said to be a suicide on the morning he is due to be arrested by the police unit charged with investigating gay men. An investigation concludes that MacLennan killed himself because he feared arrest. 1986: Underground organisation the Ten Percent Club forms to advocate for gay rights and provide rights education by Alan Lee, a doctor who returned to Hong Kong after completing medical training in Canada. The name refers to the percentage of society who are scientifically homosexual. 1989: British pop group Pet Shop Boys cause a stir in the city during their inaugural world tour. In a video played during the song It’s a Sin, the projectionist fails to cover a scene involving two men kissing, as has been promised to government censors. The Hong Kong Lesbian and Gay Film festival is held for the first time. To date, it is the longest-running LGBT film festival in Asia. 1991: Sex between consenting males over the age of 21 is decriminalised, 24 years after the UK and one year after the World Health Organisation removes homosexuality from its International Classification of Diseases. 1992: Actor and singer Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing, a “founding father” of Canto-pop, comes out as bisexual, saying, “It’s easy for me to love a woman. It’s also easy for me to love a man too.” (Five years later, he would announce his relationship with Daffy Tong Hok-tak, despite local prejudices towards the LGBT community persisting.) 1997: Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-wai releases Happy Together, a romance that follows a gay couple, played by Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Leslie Cheung. The film wins Wong best director prize at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival. 1998: The charity Rainbow of Hong Kong is founded on World Aids Day and begins working to improve the quality of life for sexual minorities. It establishes a community centre in Mong Kok and works with universities to promote research around sexuality. The organisation also curates a library of queer literature, organises activities and events, provides blood testing, counselling, legal support and domestic violence emergency support. 2003: Leslie Cheung commits suicide, aged 46, leaving a note saying he has been suffering with depression. The media links his death to his sexual orientation, reinforcing negative stereotypes and stigma around homosexuality. 2005: First Idaho (International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia) is held in Hong Kong. 2006: TVB broadcasts Gay Lovers, a documentary produced by RTHK capturing the lives of gay individuals in Hong Kong. However, the Broadcasting Authority receives complaints about the film and rules that it violates its code of practice by advocating homosexuality and same-sex marriage, and should not have been shown during “family viewing hours”. The age of consent for gay men and straight individuals is equalised at 16. The law remains silent on lesbianism. 2008: The first Pride parade is held, with close to 1,000 participants walking from Great George Street in Causeway Bay to Southorn Playground in Wan Chai. The theme is “celebrate love”. 2012: Gigi Chao, unofficial spokeswoman of Hong Kong’s LGBT community, marries her partner of nine years, Sean Eav, in France. Her property developer father, Cecil Chao Sze-tsung, offers HK$500 million to any man who can persuade her to marry. After 20,000 suitors come forward with a proposal, the socialite publishes an open letter to her father in the Post, writing: “I am proud of my life, and I would not choose to live it any other way.” At the Pride march, pop singer Denise Ho Wan-sze becomes the first mainstream female musician in Hong Kong to come out, and Ray Chan Chi-chuen is the first openly gay lawmaker to be elected in greater China. The Hong Kong Psychological Society publishes a paper outlining 11 practice guidelines for working with LGB individuals. They state that homosexuality is not a mental illness, constitutes normal human sexual behaviour, and that gay conversion therapy is “not proven to be effective or harmless”. It also recognises the societal stigma faced by LGB individuals, and states that sexual orientation is different from gender expression. 2013: The Court of Final Appeal rules a transsexual woman has the right to marry her boyfriend in her affirmed gender. “In present-day multicultural Hong Kong where people profess many different religious faiths or none at all … procreation is no longer (if it ever was) regarded as essential to marriage,” write Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma Tao-li and Permanent Judge Robert Ribeiro. 2014: Turnout at the Pride march is boosted by the Occupy protests. The MTR offers discount in-station advertising to Pride organisers. The chairman of the Equalities Commission, Dr York Chow Yat-ngok, joins for a second year despite being criticised by anti-gay groups. 2016: Bronze lions outside HSBC Building are painted rainbow colours as part of bank’s “Celebrate Pride, celebrate unity” campaign, causing anger among family groups. Nicholas Wong Yu-bon, a lecturer at Education University of Hong Kong, wins the Lambda Literary Award in Gay Poetry in the US with Crevasse, becoming the first Hong Kong poet to win the award. He uses the publicity to draw attention to the lack of laws to protect sexual minorities in the city. 2017: Men who haven’t had sex with other men in the previous 12 months are permitted to give blood, in line with France, Britain, US and Australia. NGO Aids Concern describes it as a “step forward” but calls for a further reduction. University of Hong Kong publishes a study that shows public acceptance of gay marriage has increased from 38 per cent to 50 per cent in four years, and that acceptance of the gay and lesbian communities has increased from 50 per cent to 60 per cent. The authors conclude that “Hong Kong’s pattern of change comports with the majoritarian global pattern of growing acceptance”. 2018: Hong Kong is confirmed as host of the 11th Gay Games in 2022, making it the first Asian city to do so. The Games are open to all participants, without regard to sexual orientation, and there are no qualifying standards. The 10th Pride parade is held, the largest to date, with 12,000 people. Despite many diplomats and lawmakers showing up, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor refuses to attend. 2019: A Cathay Pacific advert featuring two men strolling hand in hand along a beach is banned by the Airport Authority and the MTR Corporation, then reinstated after a public outcry. A court rules in favour of Yeung Chu-wing, an LGBT activist who has sought the abolition of laws targeting gay men, on the basis they are incompatible with the Basic Law. In June, the Court of Final Appeal rules that the government cannot deny spousal benefits to same-sex couples.