Millions of Chinese women married to gays

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There may be as many as 16 million women in China who are married to homosexual men, a leading expert has estimated.

Professor Zhang Bei-chuan at Qingdao University - an authority on AIDS and HIV - said due to traditional family values, about 90 per cent of gays get married because of pressure to conform.

Xiao Yao, a 29-year-old magazine editor in Xi'an of Shaanxi province, divorced her gay husband in 2008.

"Most gays' wives I've known are silently suffering at the hands of husbands who could never love them, and like me, some even get abused by husbands, who were also under great pressure," she said.

Xiao runs a website called 'Homeland of gays' wives', which has 1,200 registered users."The website makes them feel they're not alone," she said.

Xiao Dong, a 36-year-old gay, who heads a civil organisation in HIV/AIDS prevention and control, said Zhang's estimation was unsubstantiated.

Whether to get married or not is too complicated a question among the gay population and it is almost impossible to project the number of married gays by simple calculation, he said.

"To put gays' wives under the spotlight might cause more public misunderstanding or even hatred toward the gay population, which does not help defuse existing social discrimination against them."

However, Meng Lin, an open gay from Beijing, believed that Zhang's estimation was reasonable."I myself almost married a woman many years ago but finally decided not to when I learnt I was HIV positive.

"Gays and their wives are both victims of social discrimination and stigma, so we should not simply blame one party," said Meng, 50.

Another gay Wang Zi (not his real name), 27, said he did not want a heterosexual marriage, but maybe one day he would be forced into it because he did not want to hurt the feelings of his parents.

Info : News