If designs and vibrant colors encourage condom use, then people will be better protected against disease. This display was part of an AIDS-awareness exhibition in Shanghai. Reuters File Photo

Zhang Beichuan is passionate about his work to contain the spread of HIV/AIDS, even though many people think he's mentally disturbed because he meets with gay men and prostitutes every day.

"I just know what I am doing is right."

Zhang, 63, is a professor of AIDS studies at Qingdao University and has researched homosexuality for more than two decades. He also is China's first expert to advocate HIV/AIDS control among men who have sex with men, which people in the field shorten to MSM. And he is considered to be the country's most outspoken advocate for gay rights.

"The AIDS situation in China is very serious. In particular, the infection rate among the MSM community is quite high. In some cities, it has already reached 15 percent.

"The MSM communities are often in low profile," Zhang said. "In a bid to avoid exposing their sexual orientation, the men often change sex partners, which greatly increases the risk of AIDS infection. If the infection got out of control among them, the consequences would be too ghastly to contemplate.

"So I think the best way to control an AIDS outbreak among MSM is to protect their rights. If same-sex marriage can be legalized, the frequent changing of sex partners would be greatly reduced," Zhang said.

In a bid to better promote gay rights and HIV/AIDS control, Zhang started publishing Friends Exchange magazine in February 1998. A survey of 300 gay men in Beijing showed that 49 percent had read the magazine before and thought it useful.

Money for the magazine ran out and publication ended last year. But Zhang said his determination to advocate for gay rights and HIV/AIDS control will never change.

He said he is happy that society has become more tolerant of gay people, but that they make up a group that some people still demonize. "We need to promote the idea to the whole society that MSM are common people. They just have a different sexual orientation."

Gay people should enjoy the same basic rights as other people, he said. "The government needs to launch more policies and provide legal protection for them. They have suffered too much from people's moral standard, and that greatly lowers their quality of life."

He also called for the central government to give more support - in policies and funding - to grassroots NGOs that work with gays and lesbians.

Zhang's work has been widely recognized, but except for one research project commissioned by the Ministry of Health, most of his research funds have come from the Ford Foundation and the Gates Foundation. This year, the foundations redirected their support and Zhang lost his main fund sources.

He is now looking for a bit more than 100,000 yuan ($15,800) to research the wives of gay men. These women are the sacrifice of society's discrimination against gays, Zhang said. Their husbands married them not for love, but to cover up their sexual orientation.