Beijing LGBT Center: Working To Advance LGBT Rights in China
The Beijing LGBT Center (北京同志中心) is a non-profit organization focused on empowering the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community not only in Beijing, but also throughout all of China.
John Shen, the development program manager for the Beijing LGBT Center, shares more about what the center does and how others can get involved in supporting the LGBT community in China.
Tell us about yourself and the Beijing LGBT Center.
My name is Qiang Shen (AKA John Shen). I am originally from Guilin which is located in South China, and I came to Beijing in 2010.
The Beijing LGBT Center is a non-profit LGBT Charity which aims at advocating for a better environment for LGBT people to live in China. It was started on Valentine’s day in 2008 as an activity space for the LGBT community in Beijing. Now it has developed into one of the biggest LGBT organizations in China with a focus on mental health, transgender empowerment, and workplace diversity.
How long have you worked with the Beijing LGBT Center? What is your role there?
I first joined the Center in 2012 as a volunteer and formally became a staff member in 2013. Now I am working as the development program manager, taking charge of the overall fundraising program for the center.
What kind of resources, events, and support does the center provide?
The center is now serving as a platform for LGBT people to seek general support like mental health counselling, hotline services and leadership training for transgender community, and diversity and inclusion training for corporate. Besides that, we also organize regular community cultural and entertainment events with different LGBT friendly business in Beijing like GLB and Cheers.
Are the events and resources mostly in Chinese? Or other languages as well?
For most services, we usually do it in Chinese. For most of the cultural and entertaining events like parties and games, we do it in both Chinese and English.
What has your experience with the Beijing LGBT center been like?
The center has always been a significant place for the LGBT community in Beijing. It provides strength, advocacy, and education for LGBT people not only Beijing, but also nationwide. Since 2013, we have been working on providing mental health services and ending conversion therapy.
In 2014, we filed a legal case against a clinic which provided illegal electric conversion therapy services that extremely harmed the LGBT community. It was the first-ever winning case for LGBT people in China. The Chinese court also made a very positive comment to the case: "homosexuality is not a mental disorder, hence they need no treatment”.
Later in 2015, when we started to work on transgender issues in China, we also encouraged many young transgender people to successfully affirm themselves. Some of them successfully entered college to study, which they mentioned as something “they had never imagined."
Do you feel the LGBTQ community is supported in Beijing in general or have you found it difficult?
In Beijing, the LGBT community has received relatively better support than other 2ndor 3rd tier cities in terms of mental health, sexual health, legal and medical support. However, it is still not enough.
How is the LGBT Center looking to grow in the future?
The center is actually now in a very difficult stage as we are struggling with funding to support our operation. We will focus most of our work on doing fundraising and maintaining our current services in 2020.
If you would like to support us and become a monthly donor, please refer to the QR code below:
How can people find out more about the Beijing LGBT center?
The easiest way is to follow our Wechat account: bjlgbtcenter, or Weibo: 北京同志中心
Are there other organizations where people can join more LGBT communities in Beijing and China?
There are several other LGBT organizations in Beijing. Destination has been one of the Icon places which does regular events and parties. For LBT community, there is also a Beijing LBT Center which does regular events. However, the number of these organizations are shrinking significantly due to the hard living environment in China.
There are also LGBT Centers in Xi’an, Hangzhou, Wuhan, Urumqi, and Guangzhou. Shanghai has the only Pride organization SHpride, which does annual pride events in June. Usually you have to join some local Wechat LGBT groups for further questions.
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Listen to the latest Date Night China Podcast Episode: Episode 16: Going the Distance.
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