ABSTRACT
Old criminal laws prohibiting male homosexual acts appeared, at times, in four jurisdictions. Today they survive only for the armed forces in South Korea. While human rights are now widely accepted by governments, at least rhetorically, it is important to remember that their development has been very slow, and often episodic. Criminal prohibitions of homosexual acts have been, over time, the most dramatic examples of laws that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. The lack of an explicit ‘sodomy’ law did not mean tolerance for homosexuals in post-revolutionary China. Laws against prostitution exist throughout the region. Some compulsory testing for sexually transmitted infections has been reported in China and Vietnam, although sex work is officially prohibited. Extensive censorship expressly prohibiting information and images relating to homosexuality has been in place in mainland China. Transsexuals are individuals with a compelling desire to change their physical sexual characteristics either from male to female or from female to male.
