On November 24th at 9 am, a judge-brokered discussion between the litigants of the first lawsuit against school textbooks’ stance on homosexuality in China took place at the Beijing No.1 Intermediate People’s Court. The litigants were a junior students at Sun Yat-sen University using the alias of Qiubai, and officials from the ministry of education. Qiubai said that she had worked for a long time with her lawyer Mr. Wang for this opportunity for dialogue, which focused on issues including the management of offending textbook, content censorship and amendments.
The meeting lasted two hours, while supporters and the media gathered outside the courthouse waiting for the results. However, it ended without an agreement being reached. According to Qiubai, she was a bit disappointed by the unclear answers given her by the officials. She pointed out that instead of sending the legal person and mandatory lawyer of the ministry of education to the dialogue as mandated by the law, the ministry of education sent a woman officer from the policy and justice division and a male officer who did not know much about the issues at hand. Qiubai said after the meeting that even though there is still a long way to go, she does not intend to give up.
