6. Ancient China
China struggles with a great deal of homophobia today. Much like in some African countries, such as Zimbabwe or Uganda, a common belief in China today is that homosexuality is an import from the west and counter to traditional Chinese values. As in the case of African countries, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Positive depictions of homosexuality date back to the Han Dynasty, 206 BC – 220 AD. Homosexual behavior was called Nan-Feng and was commonplace, especially among the class of scholars and officials called Shi-Da-Fu. Affairs between two men were prevalent in this social rank and depicted very positively.
Ancient China was a polygamous culture, with men able to take many wives. While marriage was limited to taking place between men and women, same-sex affairs outside of marriage appeared to be widely tolerated. This acceptance changed, as in so many other nations, when western colonizers and missionaries arrived with Christian ideas of monogamy and morality. Everywhere Christian missionaries and western colonizers went, they quickly instituted codified morals that governed sexual behavior. It isn’t hard to feel, looking at the history of eras where homosexuality was tolerated, or even celebrated, that missionary work and colonization set tolerance back hundreds, if not thousands of years.