ZONE:

China's 8,000-member psychiatric association will remove homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses in a new diagnostic manual due out this year reported the New York Post.

The Chinese Psychiatric Association has concluded that homosexuality is not a perversion and will drop all reference to homosexuality as a pathological condition, said Chen Yanfang, vice chairman of the association's standing committee.

The new guidelines come after five years of study by a task force including evidence included a study published in 1999 that followed the daily lives of 51 Chinese gays and lesbians for one year.

The new standards, which replace guidelines issued in 1994, will only consider homosexuality a "mental disorder" for people unhappy with their orientation. Those who are comfortable with their orientation will no longer be considered in need of psychiatric help.

While there seems to be a thriving underground culture of gay bars and clubs, many still endure harassment. At least 37 gay men were detained in the southern province of Guangdong last July.

The new psychiatric guide "Chinese Classification and Diagnostic Criteria of Mental Disorders," which replaces a 1989 edition that defines homosexuality as a "psychiatric disorder of sexuality" has been scheduled to be issued before May.

The Chinese Psychiatric Association was not the only professional association to classify homesxuality as a disease, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of disorders in 1973 while Japan's psychiatric body called it a mental illness until 1995, and the World Health Organization until 1993.

While some quarters consider it a leap forward for the gay community, Chen emphasized that the manual was meant as a professional tool and had nothing to do with legal or social issues.