Xu Weixin/Shanghai Daily news

The city's first undergraduate university course about homosexuality and gay culture has proven more popular than expected, as hundreds of students have tried to sign up for one of 100 seats in the class at Fudan University.
Fudan became the first university in the city to offer a postgraduate course about homosexual health concerns, a class that focused heavily on AIDS prevention, two years ago. About 2,000 students have taken that course so far.
The new course focuses more on the sociological aspects of homosexuality than medical issues.
Hundreds of students have expressed interest in the new course, according to Sun Zhongxin, the professor in charge of the course.
"The previous course mainly focused on how to prevent AIDS in homosexuals, but now we will pay more attention on how to have a proper view about homosexuals," said Gao Yanning, who will lecture students in the class. "We will give students an equitable judgment on homosexuals and help eliminate students' discrimination."
"In addition to our own teachers, we will invite sociologists like Li Yinhe and a well-known Taiwan writer Pai Hsien-yung to give lectures on homosexuality and the status quo in China and the world," Gao added.
Students who have participated the previous course, said most young people don't have a clear understanding of homosexuals, as they don't meet many out homosexuals in their daily lives.
"At first, my tutor suggested I select the course, since I felt uncomfortable about the topic," said Liu Binyi, who took the homosexual health course last year. "But I am now relaxed talking about homosexuals and have started to accept homosexuality now."
Local scholars said the course will give students a fair understanding of homosexuality, which is still a taboo topic in the nation. "In China, there are about 30 million homosexuals. But our society doesn't accept them. So, opening such courses in university can be very helpful to dispel prejudice and understand such people," said Zhang Youde, a sociologist from Shanghai University.
"I think it's necessary to get to know about the culture, background and the attitude of other countries to homosexuals. And such courses can be very beneficial to us," said Liu Yu, a student at Shanghai International Studies University.