China’s Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts under fire over homophobic textbook
- Health education text refers to homosexuality as ‘sexual perversion’ and gives suggestions to ‘cure’ it, according to photos posted on social media
- Its publisher is discussing complaints and next steps with the authors
A top art school in southern China has drawn online criticism after a textbook on its student health curriculum was found to contain homophobic content.
Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts used a textbook that referred to homosexuality and “transvestism” as “sexual perversions”, according to a Weibo post on Wednesday from a user who reports homophobia in publishing and the media.
The suggestions include “increasing opportunities to mingle with the opposite sex” and “avoiding fantasising about homosexual romance during masturbation”.
Homosexuality is also described as an “illness” that is “hard to treat, with a high relapse rate and even incurable throughout one’s lifetime”.
The post was liked and shared hundreds of times on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, and attracted dozens of angry comments from users who identified as both LGBT and heterosexual.
“Homosexuality is not a disease, it’s some people’s sexual orientation and they have a God-given right to exist just like us heterosexuals,” wrote one user. “These kinds of authors are still living in the Qing dynasty.”
An employee from the textbook publisher, Guangzhou Higher Education Press, said it had received feedback from the authors on the homophobia complaints and was negotiating with them on the next steps. The publisher could not confirm which other Chinese universities were currently using the textbook.
The Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts could not be reached for comment.
Although homosexuality was declassified as a mental illness in 2001, school and university textbooks still frequently refer to it as a psychological issue.
There are no laws banning homophobic content in teaching materials, but LGBT advocates have campaigned on the issue for years. China Renmin University Press previously apologised for homophobic content in a psychology textbook in response to complaints.
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In 2017, an LGBT activist lost her legal appeal against the Ministry of Education after she complained about homophobia in a psychology textbook published by Jinan University Press.
The previous year, a report from the NGO LGBT Rights Advocacy China found 45 psychology textbooks published in China that classed homosexuality as a “sexual perversion”. More than half of those textbooks described “conversion therapy” techniques for LGBT students.
“These incorrect textbooks are still being published and used with no supervision or legal restraint,” said Yang Yi, programme officer at the China Rainbow Media Awards, a non-profit that promotes LGBT visibility in the media.
“This is not only a problem with editors’ lack of knowledge, but also shows the lack of an effective reporting system to the Ministry of Education so that discriminatory and incorrect content still remains in the curriculum.”
