Woman Appeals Ruling Over Gay ‘Mental Disorder’ Textbook

In what could be a landmark case in China, a woman has filed an appeal in her four-year fight against a university publisher and its distributor over a medical textbook that defines homosexuality as a “mental disorder.” The woman, identified as Xixi in reports, appealed the July decision in favor of Jinan University Press from a district court in Suqian, Jiangsu Province, where the book’s distributor is located. The court argued that the textbook’s claims merely diverge from Xixi’s views on homosexuality and are not factual errors, ruling that the publisher is not responsible for editing or censoring them. Xixi, who then was a university junior in Guangdong Province and a lesbian, argued in the appeal that the court’s ruling would lead to the further discrimination and marginalizing of homosexuals in China. Many netizens offered support for Xixi’s appeal.