translated from The Paper, senior reporter Zhu Ying, intern Liu Yuxiu
"Sisi" (Xixi) is not the real name, it comes from "Sisyphus who pushes the stone"-this ancient Greek mythological figure, who pushes the boulder up the mountain day after day, every time it approaches the summit, the stone will roll down.
Xixi, a 20-year-old college student, is also doing something that may be "futility". She wants to sue Jinan University Press and sales platform to classify homosexuality as a "sexual psychological disorder" in the teaching materials.
This is the first domestic dispute over the quality of "homophobia" teaching materials. After the case was filed in July 2017, it was postponed three times. On July 28, 2020, the hearing was held in Suqian, Jiangsu.
Sissi had imagined the scene presented in court countless times, but because of the epidemic situation, she could not go to court in person. The lawyer representing her participated in the trial on her behalf, but neither the defendant nor the defense lawyer was present.
Group photo of the lawyer representing the plaintiff on the day of the trial on July 28
During the three years of waiting, Xixi was confused for several times and once doubted himself, but still stumbling and persevering because "some changes will happen silently."
"I am gay"
At the age of 18, Xixi confirmed that she was gay for the first time. She was with a girl. The two are in the same high school, the girl has long hair, has a cheerful personality, and shares her shy like-mindedness. In the third year of high school, they confessed to each other and confirmed their relationship after the college entrance examination.
This is not the first time Xixi likes girls. In junior high school, she and a girl in her class would write letters to each other, send gifts to each other, eat together, and drive home. Seeing a girl playing with others makes her jealous. It was a feeling that surpassed her best friend, she couldn't tell if it was love.
Locking the door, she secretly searched for "gay" on the computer in the room, wondering what was going on. She is also fascinated by Lady GaGa, the song "Born this way" that encourages sexual minorities to accept themselves, she has heard countless times. At that time, there were many girls in her music specialty class, and there were three or four pairs of lesbian couples in the class, and the students were very tolerant.
However, once, a girl wrote a love letter to other class girls. The head teacher found out and opened a class meeting. He opened the search engine entry about homosexuality in front of the classmates and said that it was a disease. At that moment, her doubts flashed, wondering if she had a problem. But she was not convinced of her sexuality at that time. Until after the college entrance examination and his girlfriend established a relationship, "It seems that everything is settled."
In 2015, Xixi was admitted to a university in Guangzhou. There is no gay community organization on campus. She feels lonely. She often goes to Sun Yat-sen University to listen to the public elective course of "Multiple Gender and Social Culture". She also participates in activities related to sexual minorities organized by Sun Yat-sen University's Rainbow Group. She still feels unable to integrate.
She remembers that there was a debate in the freshman public elective class, the topic was "Does a gay family count as a kind of family". Some students think that “homosexuality is a pervert, how can we get married?” Some said that “homosexuality is a disease and not suitable for raising children”, and some said that gay men are prone to AIDS... Some of these statements are quoted from university textbooks. She couldn't help standing up to retort.
"What would happen to you if you were gay?" a boy asked in a slightly mocking tone.
"That's me." Xixi blurted out.
There was an uproar in the classroom with more than 100 people, mixed with booing and laughter. Someone yelled at her: "You say your own affairs are useless, only the content of the book is convincing."
She sat down weakly, her tears couldn't help falling, "I feel too weak to fight against hostility and discrimination." Roommates and classmates were also there. After coming out, no one mentioned it to her, "It seems that I deliberately didn't mention it."
Later in a social work class, the teacher asked: a mother asked the social worker for help after discovering that her son was gay, what should the social worker do? Many students think that their son should be sent for treatment or psychological counseling.
Xixi was shocked. In 2014, China's first case of "homosexual correction treatment" was won. The psychological institution that gave electroshocks to homosexuals was sentenced to a public apology and compensation. The verdict stated that "homosexuality is not a mental illness". Many media have reported on this. .
In fact, as early as 1990, the General Assembly of the World Health Organization passed the "International Classification of Diseases (Tenth Edition)" (hereinafter referred to as "ICD-10"), removing homosexuality from the mental illness list.
In the 2001 "Chinese Mental Disorder Classification and Diagnosis Standards (Third Edition)" (hereinafter referred to as "CCMD-3"), homosexuality as a whole concept is no longer a sexual orientation disorder, which is regarded as the de-pathologicalization of homosexuality in China Important sign.
However, because CCMD-3 retains "self-disharmonious" homosexuality, that is, when homosexuality causes anxiety, depression, and internal pain due to sexual orientation, it is considered as a sexual psychological disorder. Some psychiatrists, psychologists and even official institutions Accordingly, homosexuality is regarded as a mental disorder.
Xixi desperately wanted to do something. In the next semester, she went for an internship at the Same City Youth Resource Center, a gay charity organization. There, she met Qiubai.
Qiubai once led a homosexual destigmatization campaign. In 2015, Qiubai, who was still a sophomore at Sun Yat-Sen University, submitted a letter to the National Press and Publication Administration and the Guangdong Provincial Department of Education, reporting that college textbooks classify homosexuality as a sexual psychological disorder, which is equivalent to pedophilia and sexual exhibitionism. Some textbooks even pointed out the use of electric shocks to treat homosexuality.
After the report, Qiubai sued the Ministry of Education three times. The case was filed in June 2016, but the case was lost in both the first and second instances.
"Before the Qiubai case, everyone might not think that textbooks are something that needs to be paid attention to." Xixi said, now people continue to say on the Internet that there is something wrong with the textbooks of certain colleges and universities, and I want to talk to the teacher, "You can see, Regardless of whether the community or the public has a rising awareness of homosexuality, everyone will use actions to change the status quo."
Xixi is also one of them.
"I can't forget it"
In May 2016, while chatting with a friend, Xixi accidentally learned that in Jinan University's public elective textbook "Mental Health Education for College Students" (2013 edition), homosexuality was classified as a sexual psychological disorder, thinking that it was "a disorder or disorder in sex The perversion of the sexual object".
At the end of last year, a gay student of JJ University committed suicide by jumping off a building due to depression. In his suicide note, he confessed his identity and his inner distress to his parents.
Xixi couldn't help wondering if the boy had also read this textbook and couldn't breathe in the package of prejudice and discrimination.
In 2014, the City Youth Resource Center selected 90 domestic colleges and universities mental health textbooks, and found that 31 textbooks published after 2001 discussed whether homosexuality is a disease. About 41% believe that homosexuality is a disease.
Xixi feels that textbooks are usually the basis for people to understand homosexuality and homosexuals’ self-recognition. Wrong content will deepen the public’s prejudice, discrimination and campus bullying against homosexuals, and affect the psychological state, self-perception and behavior of homosexual students. Gay friends are forced by their parents to receive treatment because they see in the book that homosexuality can be corrected.
Xixi decided to send an email to the editor of "Mental Health Education for College Students", reflecting the problems in the book, but did not reply. Later, she sent a letter to the editor and Jinan University Press, hoping that the publisher would publicly apologize for the content of the book and make corrections when it is reprinted.
Still no reply. After calling the editor and the publishing house to no avail, she went to the publishing house. A person in charge told her that whether homosexuality is a sexual psychological disorder is an academic dispute, and the editor has no ability to judge and should contact the editor. They have copied the letter to the editor, who will compare the relevant content with the legal provisions.
Xixi contacted the editor again, and the editor promised to respond publicly, but was unable to contact afterwards.
Xixi and two friends gave "Yali" to Jinan University Press and the editor's work unit.
In July 2016, Xixi and his friends sent "Yali" and a letter from 300 people to Jinan University Press and the editor's work unit, hoping that the publisher can handle this textbook. She did not wait for a response.
At that time, another female college student contacted Peking University Press and its editors and reported that there was "homophobia" in "Criminal Law". The other party quickly responded, saying that the next edition will be reprinted and updated in the new edition.
This made Xixi feel "can't forget it." The experience of Qiubai and other actors showed her that even in the face of a small dialogue space, she can continue to fight for it.
In September of that year, Qiubai sued the Ministry of Education for the third time. Xixi rushed to Beijing with more than a dozen "homophobia" textbooks to witness this moment. On that day, the sun was shining in Beijing, and 23 comrades and friends came to watch. Xixi displayed the teaching materials at the door of the court without hearing witnesses, and when there was media shooting, he cooperated with the interview and pointed out the problems in the book. This made her feel that she had participated in an important moment and contributed a little.
After returning to Guangzhou, she curated an exhibition "Naming: Who Is Writing and Defining Homosexuality", hoping to arouse public attention to the "stigmatization" of homosexuality in teaching materials in an artistic way.
Two days before the event, the counselor found her and said that if she did not cancel, she would tell her parents. Xixi did not dare to come out to her parents, "it must be difficult for them to accept." Her father was an engineer, and her mother was a housewife. When she was in junior high school, her mother found that the good girl had hugged her from the back, and asked seriously, "Are you doing foundation work?" She hurriedly denied. Later, when I saw a documentary about homosexuality, my parents disdain, "Homosexuality is so abnormal."
Xixi’s private exhibition is hoping to draw the public’s attention to homosexuality issues in an artistic way.
Xixi eventually cancelled the exhibition, but still secretly held an exhibition with no audience and posted it on her personal public account.
After that, she, Qiubai, and volunteers compiled 47 textbooks with "homophobia" content, contacted the publishers and editors one by one, and received a lot of positive responses-the editors of 20 textbooks (or publishers) ) Indicates that this part of the content will be revised.
Some editors replied, “It is obviously inaccurate to classify homosexuality as a'sexual orientation disorder'. We have rectified homosexuality in the course of teaching students, and will give advice on the causes of homosexuality, the current status quo and legislation in various countries in the world. The students introduced and discussed, so that they can correctly understand homosexuality."
To change a textbook
Before deciding to prosecute, Xixi considered for a month.
In October 2016, a lawyer concerned about the Qiubai case contacted her and asked if she was willing to sue Jinan University Press to obtain a response through litigation, while continuing the discussion on the "homophobia" textbook in the Qiubai case.
Xixi has some concerns, "Can I really bear this responsibility and risk?"
But she didn't want to give up because of fear. She also had a chance. Her parents usually don't like to watch mainstream media, so she probably wouldn't know. She also took the initiative to talk to the secretary of the college to talk about her thoughts, and asked not to tell her parents. The secretary advised her not to prosecute.
Xixi is the kind of person who "the more pressure you will do".
She bought a copy of Mental Health Education for College Students from JD.com. Later, a lawyer was appointed to file a lawsuit in the court where Jinan University Press is located for infringement of consumer rights. Since it is difficult to prove that the teaching materials directly infringed on the rights of consumers, the court refused to open the case.
Qiubai has also experienced similar difficulties. Before suing the Ministry of Education, she had sued the Guangzhou Tianhe District Court and the Guangzhou Intermediate Court for the infringement of reputation rights by Guangdong Higher Education Publishing House. None of the cases were filed. In the end, she could only file an administrative case with the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court for administrative omission. litigation. In fact, the cause of this case has little to do with the textbook issues she advocated.
Guangzhou was unable to file a case, and Xixi could only file a lawsuit with the People’s Court of Suyu District, Suqian City, Jiangsu Province-Jiangsu Zhouzhou E-commerce Co., Ltd., which is responsible for the operation of JD Books, was registered in Jiangsu. Due to obvious content quality problems, Jinan University Press and Jingdong online shopping platform were sued.
Xixi’s attorney Ge Ang said that in litigation related to sexual minorities, it is often difficult to find a cause for filing a case related to the issue. The cause of the product quality dispute they selected is the closest one. "This is a rim ball and there is no way. "
I was worried that the case could not be filed, and homosexuality was not mentioned in the complaint.
After the successful filing of the case in July 2017, Xixi began to collect evidence. According to the "Publication Management Regulations", books with an error rate of more than one in ten thousand are unqualified for editing and editing.
She wanted to find a professional editor to proofread the book, but she didn't have any contacts. She posted messages in Moments and WeChat groups. It took more than a month for an editor to do it.
After proofreading, it was found that the error rate exceeded one in ten thousand. Xixi sorted out 54 mistakes based on this, only one was related to homosexuality-the new version of "Mental Health Education for College Students" was revised in March 2017 to remove "homosexuality is a disorder in sex or the inversion of sexual objects" Description, but still classify it as a sexual psychological disorder.
This one is the most difficult to prove. Xixi sorted out 31 pieces of evidence, including classification standards for mental illness such as CCMD-3 and ICD-10, victory judgments for homosexual torsion treatment cases, media reports, and relevant documents from the Ministry of Health.
Through the gay agency, she also contacted three medical and psychological experts to persuade them to issue expert opinions, proving that homosexuality is not a disease. There are also experts who mail materials to judges and provide advice.
Errors in the book that are not related to homosexuality require a lot of time and energy to find evidence. During that time, after class, Xixi went into the library to check materials.
She found that the first difficulty in finding evidence is how to prove that CCMD-3 only classifies "disharmonious homosexuality" as a sexual psychological disorder.
Before the prosecution, she had reported the wrong content in "Mental Health Education for College Students". The Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television Bureau of Guangdong Province responded that CCMD-3 "clearly included homosexuality as a sexual psychological disorder", and there were no intellectual errors in the homosexual part of the book-this The reply was used as evidence by Jinan University Press, together with the business license, editor profile, and editing error rate statistics, and submitted to the court to prove that the book does not have quality problems.
It has been 19 years since CCMD-3 was released and has not been revised. The International Classification of Diseases (11th Edition) (ICD-11) released in 2018 deleted the sexual orientation-related disease classification in the previous edition. The National Health Commission also issued a document. Starting from March 2019, medical institutions at all levels and various types use ICD-11 for disease classification and coding. But in China, whether homosexuality is a disease, there are still different voices.
"I want to win"
The hearing is scheduled for October 31, 2017. Xixi sent a large package of materials to the court four or five days in advance. After receiving notice soon, the judge needed more time to study the case and the hearing was postponed.
After more than two months, she waited again for the trial. However, as soon as he flew from Guangzhou to Nanjing, Xixi received a message from her lawyer: the trial was postponed again on the grounds that Jingdong applied for judicial appraisal of the book product quality of the teaching materials involved.
She was a little sad and worried about the delays, "Will everyone still pay attention to support the next court hearing?"
The sense of uneasiness started early. This time, the court only opened 5 places for auditors, and required hearings 3 days in advance, which is very inconvenient for media and foreign partners who want to go to the scene.
That night, Xixi was sitting on the bus from Nanjing to Suqian, and the mist outside the window seemed to be an endless journey. In the darkness, the man in the back row suddenly hummed, his tone sad, like a sigh, but also a complaint. Xixi's nose was sore. She thought of "The Wanderer" by the Serbian poet Luis Sernuda: "Forward, forward, don't turn back, persevere until the road and the end of your life..."
Can't sleep all night. Early the next morning, she went to the court to submit evidence and wanted to talk to the judge, but she didn't see it.
She did not expect that this extension would be two years.
The case was transferred to the judicial appraisal department. However, there is no special appraisal agency directly related to the quality of book products. Xixi and JD.com entrusted the court to submit an appraisal application to the Publishing Product Quality Supervision and Inspection Center of the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television.
The application was rejected, and no other institution was willing to appraise, so there was no appraisal result-these were only known to Xixi on April 17 this year.
On this day, she also received a notice of the opening of the court in 5 days. Xixi is studying in Hong Kong for graduate school, and she needs to be quarantined for 14 days to go to Suqian. The court clerk said that the lawyer could appear in court for her, and if she and the lawyer did not show up on the same day, it would be deemed to be withdrawn. Xixi was in a hurry.
She made more than 20 calls to the judge, but never got through. The friend posted her situation on the WeChat public account, calling on everyone to help ask the court. For a while, the court phone was hit with a busy tone. In the end, the secretary got through and the application for postponing the hearing was passed.
Xixi felt the power of support for the first time. In the past three years, the court session has been postponed repeatedly, without much media attention, and not much discussion in the community. Compared with the Qiubai case and other comrade cases, her influence is much smaller... She often feels frustrated and even deliberately avoids discussing the case.
The lawyer comforted her that every postponement prolonged the life cycle of the case.
After the prosecution, she heard some unfriendly voices, calling homosexuality a pervert, saying that she took the opportunity to hype. The counselor also advised her not to go to the trial, "it will definitely lose, it doesn't make much sense." But some people admire her persistence and appreciate what she has done, "Please forgive me as a coward," they said.
She crowdfunded the prosecution fee on WeChat. Some gay parents donated 500 or 1,000; some non-gay friends were influenced by her and joined the Rainbow Group and began to pay attention to sexual minorities.
In April of this year, a media reported the case, which was featured in a hot search, attracting 120,000 comments and 1.95 million likes. In the comments, many people said that homosexuality is not a disease.
Xixi seemed to see the "results of persistence."
There are also worries. After appearing on the camera for an interview, she was afraid of being seen by her parents. Her mother often mentioned to her a female relative who was successful in her career and made a lot of money, but she did not get married and had children. "You must not be like this." She hasn't figured out how to face her parents.
This lawsuit greatly affected her life direction. After graduating from university, Xixi went to Hong Kong to study gender studies. After graduation this year, he stayed at a Hong Kong NGO charity organization to engage in labor-related work.
At the beginning of July, Xixi received the notice of the hearing again. Because of the epidemic, she applied for an online trial. The court did not pass the case on the grounds that both parties had a lot of evidence and needed to go to court to cross-examine. She applied again for adjournment of the hearing, but it failed.
Xixi felt very sorry that she could not present her opinion in court, after all, this was the opportunity she had waited for three years.
Winning the case is difficult, Xixi knows, but she wants to win. She hopes that no more homosexuals will be harmed by "homophobia" textbooks, and that everyone can have a space free from stigma and discrimination. Read in Chinese at The Paper