Elderly woman who supported gay grandson in viral video draws vicious attacks

China’s LGBT community is up in arms after a blogger verbally attacked a 90-year-old woman who supported her gay grandson in a viral video, calling her a former prostitute and a “comfort woman" - in a reference to women forced into prostitution by Japanese soldiers in World War II.

2-MIN READ2-MIN

Screenshot of the weibo page of the man who attacks a 90-year-old Fuzhou woman who supported her gay grandson in a viral video.

Published: 12:59pm, 20 Aug 2013Updated: 3:05pm, 20 Aug 2013

China’s LGBT community is up in arms after a blogger verbally attacked a 90-year-old Fuzhou woman who supported her gay grandson in a viral video, calling her a former prostitute and a “comfort woman" - in a reference to women forced into prostitution by Japanese soldiers in World War II.

The blogger, “Jixiangjingang001”, who appears to be a man from Yunnan according to his Weibo profile, wrote last week in response to the elderly woman’s viral message to grandson:

“This grandmother may have been a prostitute or a comfort woman, otherwise an elderly Chinese person of her age would never have made such comments.”

The post enraged members of the gay community and their supporters - eliciting thousands of comments and re-posts. Some reported him to Weibo censors, who took down the original post. But the war-of-words had only started.

In following posts, the man continued attacking China’s homosexuals.

“I am sympathetic with gays, but will absolutely not tolerate such an old lady who flouts Chinese morality and ethics to publicly support gays,” he said in a later post among a litany of attacks. In another post, he argued that prostitutes had better moral standards than gays because unlike homosexuals, they were often forced into working in the sex industry.