News

Organisers Of LGBT Event In China Forced To Cancel Conference

LGBT

The organisers of an LGBT conference in China have been forced to cancel their event, the second such event that has been cancelled in recent months.

The Speak Out event was scheduled to take place at the Jinsha Theatre in Chengdu, with over 300 attendees due to visit the conference.

According to Reuters, the event wanted to “expand awareness of lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues”.

However days before the event, their booking was cancelled, the theatre saying it had accidentally double-booked the venue.

One of the founders of Speak Out told Reuters: “The conference venue Jinsha Theatre told us that a government official activity was scheduled to be held on the same day, which left us with no choice but to cancel.

“The local state security bureau in Chengdu has also been in touch with us by phone in recent days, asking questions such as what is our next move on the arrangement for any event and what we are going to talk about at the event.”

The news comes months after lesbian dating app Rela mysteriously disappeared from the App Store and Google Play Store.

Although the reason for its disappearance is unknown, some reports suggested that Rela was removed because of its protest at the Shanghai marriage market in People’s Park, where “a group of mothers of LGBT children were kicked out by police while trying to raise awareness for gay rights”.

Despite the fact that China is now estimated to be the world’s third largest LGBT market after Europe and the US, worth around £300bn, according to a recent WorkForLGBT poll, only 39% of the country’s population believe same-sex marriage should be legal.

Read more here.

Chloe Gay

Chloe is a reporter at Global Dating Insights. Originally from Bracknell, she is studying Communication & Media at Bournemouth University. She enjoys writing, travelling and socialising with her friends and family.

Global Dating Insights is part of the Industry Insights Group. Registered in the UK. Company No: 14395769