The Comrades In Action (or CIA) is a loose structured, low-entry organization based in Beijing, China. It is a very special organization, in the sense that it is an entirely invisible body, with no headquarter, no offices, no leaders, and all its members scattered on the Internet. In fact, it is also an underground organization, because the establishment of CIA were never granted permission by the Chinese government.

According to 45-year-old Jason Yu (this is an alias, as requested by the interviewee), who is a teacher and also a new member of the organization, the only goal of CIA is to help as many as possible gays and lesbians find their own kind, and join their own “tension-free” social circle.

“I had had enough of the isolated days, when I had to hide my sexual orientation to my colleagues, friends, family……even to myself! This is not a joke – I even tried to tell myself that I was a heterosexual and got married. You simply couldn’t imagine the torture. Eventually my marriage turned out to be a failure, yet I dare not tell my parents – or anybody else – the true reason behind the surface.

“Thanks to the Internet tools of this era, I am able to find a way to reach the group I truly belong to. – About six months ago, I learned from my student about how to surf the Internet, and accidentally ran into a gay website. There I met a nice ‘comrade’ from the CIA, who introduced to me this whole new world! I could never imagine one day I would make so many gay friends, in front of whom I need hide myself no more. And because of my painful experience, I particularly feel it is necessary I join the CIA and help out other gays and lesbians who are still struggling in the nightmare I used to be in.”

Embodied in Jason’s words is a bitter fact: although homosexuality, as a long-existing natural phenomenon, is widely understood and accepted in western countries today, sadly it is not quite the case in China, where homosexuals are still reluctantly “tolerated” in the best situation. In fact, homosexual behaviors only became arguably “legal” in the country as late as in 1992. And it was not until 2001 that the Chinese government finally crossed “Homosexuality” off the list of mental illness symptoms. And even legally gays are equal with all other citizens, due to historical prejudice and discrimination towards this group, as well as the dominating Chinese tradition of “carrying on the family line”, in real life they are still considerably marginalized by the mainstream society.

Examples are abundant. In 1999, Fang Gang, the author of the book “Homosexuality In China”, was sued, and in the first instance judgment, people saw the official statement “homosexuality is abnormal”. In December 2001, the first Chinese Homosexual Film Festival was discontinued by the government in the middle of its screening with no clear reasons. Last but not least, the 2006 Oscar-winning movie “Brokeback Mountain” was never granted permission to enter cinemas in China – while most of the other winners were quickly introduced into the market.

In short, gays and lesbians in China are never fully recognized their basic human rights, and are very likely to be humiliated once their “special” sexual inclination is discovered. According to Sociologist Li Yinhe, currently China has a homosexual population of 39 to 52 million. Among them about 38% once suffered from assault, blackmail or unfair treatment (such as separation from partners resulted in family interference, or being laid off only because their sex orientation), more than 60% constantly felt lonely and depressed, over 30% seriously considered suicide, and 10% committed attempted suicide.

“It is therefore quite understandable that Chinese gays often hide themselves carefully. However this self-containment is very likely to cause high mental pressure, which craves for an outburst. ” Jason notes.

“I am glad that we can provide an outlet. The virtual world of Internet enables everyone to maintain one’s privacy, and therefore provides us with conditions to establish our own community. On the Internet, both helpers and helped feel safe and relaxed in the community. As a helper, I never ask the real name, location or any other personal information. All I do is  leaving a message on board or in a chatroom, offering my QQ number, and encouraging anyone who has puzzles on homosexual issues contact me.”

The “QQ” Jason aforementioned is a very popular tool similar to MSN and Skype, which boasts 900 million accumulated registered users in China to date, and just realized a simultaneous online users of 91 million a few days ago. Other platforms such as Tianya Chatroom and Gay58.com are also frequently used. The grand number of base users  guarantees high demand for services Jason and his fellow members provides. According to Jason, the CIA members have helped hundreds and thousands of gays since its establishment four years ago. Jason himself has introduced over 50 lonely gays into the gay community.

“Great feeling of achievements!” Jason declares. However he also points out some shortcomings of CIA’s network mode.

“So far we can only reach people within the Internet. However statistics show that only one fifth of the population are netizens. So I am really worried about the bigger number who are left outside the web –  just like me six months ago. How can we help these people, who have no access to the Internet? What is more, what we are doing now is only hiding underground and creating a secret communities of our own, which barely has any impact on the broad mass in the mainstream society. If we ultimately seek to realize equal legal and social rights with heterosexuals, we need to do more.”

Jason is absolutely right. To gain the recognition of the majority of society, hiding at corners will never help to achieve the goal. However in my opinion, secretly uniting gays on the Internet can be a good start. Then what the CIAs need to do next is to get themselves more organized, open-up (at least partly) to  the mainstream society, and start dialogue and communication with it. Arts and performances could be good bridges between the two sides,  while other forms such as blogs, novels and movies can also make gays’ voices heard, their minds understood, and eventually their deserved rights attained.