A lesbian student of the “South China Normal University” sued the publisher of a textbook describing homosexuality as a “psychosexual disorder”. Her pseudonym XiXi was created in reference to Sisyphus and stands symbolically for her years of struggle.

Since 2001, homosexuality is officially no longer considered a mental disorder in China and although the standard diagnostic manual classifies homosexuality as a “sexual orientation”, there are numerous textbooks that still suggest it is a disease. A 2014 survey found that 31 of 90 mental health textbooks published after 2001 still contain substantive misrepresentations about homosexuality.

When XiXi, a Chinese psychology student, found a passage in a recent textbook that “classifies homosexuality as a ‘common psychosexual disorder'”, she did not want to leave it like that. “It is a factual error to classify homosexuality as a psychosexual disorder,” XiXi told RFA, and a “question of product quality”.

XiXi said she had sent an e-mail to the publisher of the book, written letters to the publisher and even visited his office, but all requests to correct the wording had been refused. And so she decided to hold Jinan University Press legally responsible. In 2017, the then 20-year-old filed charges against Jinan University Press for publishing books with “erroneous and misleading content” and against Jiangsu Yuanzhou E-Commerce, a subsidiary of the NASDAQ-listed e-commerce company JD Books, for selling the book.

“The content I really want to complain about is only a small part of the evidence,” XiXi explained. Her main concern is to raise awareness and to initiate public discussion. After all, XiXi, who is a lesbian woman herself, has been bullied frequently because of her sexual orientation. Most recently, when she confessed to her fellow students at university that she likes women, she had been laughed at and advised to study the textbook more closely. That made her angry and she decided to demand a public apology and financial compensation from the publisher in addition to recalling the book and correcting the wording.

Xixi, who is in Hong Kong, could not attend the hearing due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The picture shows her lawyers with a rainbow flag in front of the court building.

For various reasons, the hearing was delayed by three years before the case was finally heard by a district court in China on 28 July 2020. It is not known whether XiXi was successful with her claim. But for XiXi, who chose her pseudonym in reference to Sisyphus from Greek mythology, it is clear that she will continue to fight tirelessly to ensure that no more homosexuals are harmed by homophobic textbooks.

*Title photo:
Poster of the exhibition Naming: Who writes and defines homosexuality at South China Normal University. XiXi finally officially cancelled it after outing threats, but still published the series of pictures secretly. Two days before the event, the consultant found her and said that if she did not cancel, she would tell her parents.

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