In
Hong Kong, a quiet advance for gay
rights By Kent Ewing
HONG KONG - While gay activists in this
conservative city of 7.1 million people have for
years struggled, mostly in vain, to win equal
rights and legal protections for homosexuals,
immigration officials have been quietly handing
out special "relationship visas" for partners of
gay professionals coming from overseas.
The stark contradiction has, of course,
met with protests of a double standard among the
local gay community. In the end, however, rights
granted now on the sly to only a relative few
high-flying gay executives will inevitably trickle
down to their local counterparts. As with
trickle-down economics, however, those waiting for
tangible improvement in their lives are,
understandably, growing impatient.
Anti-discrimination legislation protecting
gays in the workplace
and in public life, now
commonplace in much of the West, is still a long
way off here, and recognition of gay marriage even
farther away. But, thanks to Hong Kong's
relentless pursuit of its economic interests -
which includes attracting the best foreign talent
to the city, no matter the color, creed or sexual
orientation of that talent - the agenda of the
city's increasingly vocal gay community is on the
advance, albeit slowly.
Although city
officials only begrudgingly accept it, Hong Kong
hosts an annual gay-pride parade, but that usually
features campy displays of homosexuality, often
garbed in provocative pink, that mostly serve to
reinforce local stereotypes and prejudices. And
gay-rights organizations such as Horizons and the
Hong Kong Ten Percent Club have been up and
running for more than 20 years. In all that time,
however, victories - both legal and attitudinal -
have been few and far between.
It wasn't
until 1991 that Hong Kong's Legislative Council
(Legco), then under British rule, acted to
decriminalize consensual sex between men, although
the legislation set the age of consent at 21
(while it remained 16 for heterosexuals) and
ignored lesbianism altogether. In 2005, Hong
Kong's High Court ruled the higher age of consent
for gay men unconstitutional, and a government
appeal of that ruling - spearheaded by Chief
Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, a devout Catholic
- failed in 2006. So the age for consensual sex
for both heterosexuals and gay men in Hong Kong is
now 16, but the legal invisibility of lesbianism
continues.
Legco has also enacted equal
opportunity legislation. Despite the increasingly
visible presence of gay life in the city - in the
form of gay nightclubs, gay beaches, gay pride
parades and even a gay film festival - sexual
orientation is not covered by these laws.
In 2006, RTHK (Radio Television Hong Kong)
- an independent public broadcaster modeled on the
BBC - aired a controversial documentary called Gay
Lovers, which prompted a stream of complaints from
viewers who felt that it encouraged a homosexual
lifestyle. Acting on those complaints, the
Broadcasting Authority censured RTHK for showing a
program that was "unfair, partial and biased
towards homosexuality" and that had the effect of
"promoting the acceptance of homosexual marriage".
Two years later, however, after one of the
gay men featured in the documentary launched a
legal challenge, the High Court overturned the
authority's ruling, saying that it was not
necessary to include anti-gay views in the program
in order to honor broadcasting guidelines of equal
time and fair play.
Moreover, in 2009,
after prolonged sessions of wrangling laced with
homophobic asides, Legco voted to include same-sex
cohabiting couples in landmark legislation aimed
at preventing domestic violence.
While the
city's gay community celebrated these recent
victories, their enthusiasm was tempered by larger
legislative failures to protect their rights. RTHK
may feel free to air programs about gay life and
battered gay lovers can now take their abusive
partners to court, but employers can still fire
workers because of their sexual orientation and
gay relationships remain a social taboo and a
legal nonentity.
Unless you happen to be a
gay expatriate with professional skills that Hong
Kong needs to keep its competitive edge. Even in
this case, however, recognition is limited and
provisional.
As cities go, Hong Kong is
very generous to heterosexual expatriates and
their spouses. The spouse, like his wife or her
husband, is granted a Hong Kong identity card and
allowed to seek employment. After seven years in
the city, permanent residency is granted, meaning
the couple may live here as long as they like and
enjoy all of the privileges of full citizenship -
such as public health care and voting rights - as
long they maintain their residence.
By
contrast, the "relationship visa" now being
granted to homosexual couples offers none of these
benefits; it is nothing more than an extended
tourist visa. Gay partners are not allowed to
work, receive no ID card and do not qualify for
permanent residency. The only thing that
distinguishes their status from that of a
run-of-the-mill tourist is that they are not
required to leave the city after three to six
months, depending on their home country, and then
apply for re-entry. Instead, they are allowed to
apply for a visa extension in Hong Kong and, if
their spouse is deemed important enough, their
applications are routinely accepted.
After
5% of the workforce at investment firm Goldman
Sachs identified themselves as gay, bisexual or
transgender in a recent internal survey, financial
centers like Hong Kong were prompted to take
notice. But the firm's head of diversity in Asia,
Stephen Golden, says Hong Kong may need to grant
broader recognition and privileges to partners of
gay high-flyers if it wants to attract the best
possible talent to work and live in the city.
"Hong Kong will need to consider these
issues as it looks at ways to strengthen its lead
as a regional hub and global financial center," he
recently told the South China Morning Post, the
city's leading English-language newspaper.
UBS's diversity chief Hayden Majajas
added: "Our ability to hire the best and brightest
talent may be limited by the availability of
different visa categories."
Clearly, then,
with gay marriage and civil unions on the rise in
the West, international corporate culture is
becoming increasingly accommodating to same-sex
relationships. Talent is the bottom line, and
sexual orientation is irrelevant - unless, that
is, the Asian financial hub in which you are
headquartered is unwelcoming to a gay lifestyle.
Hong Kong has taken the first step toward
rolling out the welcome mat to gay professionals,
but so far that partial embrace does little more
than turn their partners into permanent tourists.
The so-called "relationship visa" feels more like
a cagey concession than a true accommodation;
those it attracts are likely to stay for only a
short period of time and, while they are here, the
double standard applied to homosexual and
heterosexual couples in the city is bound to be a
source of irritation if not outright discontent.
More should and - due to corporate pressure -
probably will be done to make them feel at home.
Meanwhile, members of the local gay
community can only hope that their employers,
taking a cue from Goldman Sachs, UBS and other
corporate giants, will start judging them by their
talents rather than their sexual preferences and
that Hong Kong's legal system, prodded by its
economic interests, will finally grant them the
same rights enjoyed by everyone else in the city.
Kent Ewing is a Hong Kong-based
teacher and writer. He can be reached at
kewing@netvigator.com
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