Opinion | The gay Hong Kong Chinese men afraid to come out to their families, and why parents need educating to accept them
- Hong Kong Chinese respondents to a survey say fear of rejection is the main reason they conceal their gay identities from their families
- The unwillingness of gay men in Hong Kong to practise safe sex or disclose they ahve HIV are big factors in the rapid growth in HIV infection rates in the city
It’s a disturbing set of statistics. HIV diagnosis rates in Hong Kong have climbed over the past decade, unlike in other places in the world where there has been a consistent fall in the numbers of new HIV cases.
Between 2010 and 2016, the annual number of new HIV diagnoses in Hong Kong increased by nearly 80 per cent, to a total of 692 new cases in 2016. By contrast, between 2010 and 2017, the annual rate of new HIV diagnoses declined by 14 per cent in Asia and the Pacific as a whole.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong’s annual government expenditure on HIV prevention policies has soared in an attempt to address this entrenched health scourge. By 2020, prevention costs are projected to reach HK$400 million.
Statistics show a solid majority of HIV diagnoses in Hong Kong have been in the group of men who have sex with men (MSM). Dr Tim Brown, HIV epidemiologist from the East West Centre in Hawaii, once characterised HIV in Hong Kong as an epidemic within that group.
The chief executive of Aids Concern Hong Kong, Andrew Chidgey, has argued that a major cause of the rapid growth in HIV infection rates in Hong Kong is the pervasive cultural taboo against homosexuality among Hong Kong Chinese families, leading to men’s unwillingness to disclose either a gay or HIV-positive identity.
