Looking for a LGBT community in Tibet is futile. Of the handful of modern reports about gay life in Tibet, since 1999, only one writer claims to have encountered more than one or two gay individuals, usually by chance. Jump ahead to my own visit in 2013 when I did not find any gay person
Tibet was once an independent kingdom but today is part of the People’s Republic of China following an invasion in 1959. Some of Tibet’s diplomatic allies, as well as sympathetic scholarly and non-governmental bodies, are based in India, including the government-in-exile headed by the Dalai Lama.
In short, homosexuality is not illegal in Tibet because it was not specified as illegal in the country. But the Chinese invasion brought strong prohibitions against homosexauslity. In Buddhist Tibet there is a long cultural tradition of considering same-sex behavior to be sexual misconduct. Buddhism is most concerned with whether an action is helpful, based on good intentions, and freedom from harm. Thus, a specific act can sometimes be either permissible or not permissible, depending upon its context. There is no special limitation here that applies uniquely to homosexuals. Following a devotional path of Buddha, persons of all sexual orientations are to remain celibate.
Name: Tibet
Population: 2610000
Capital: Lhasa - Pop. 260000
Area: 1158800 sq. km/ sq. miles
Language: Tibetan, Chinese
Religion: Buddhism
Status of Homosexuality: Not illegal
Telephone Country Code: 86
Gay Life in Tibet–The Undercover Life of a Proud Gay Man
Lesbian couple Katie Cook and Maggie Young are traveling the world meeting LGBT people. Here they meet Jetsan in Lhasa, Tibet, who has found he is not alone. By Katie Cook and Maggie Young Sapphic Nomads.com 31 March 2013 Re-posted from Sapphic Nomads-Tibet Finding gay Tibetans turned out to be as we expected –
Dalai Lama Donates to Center for Healthy Minds. “It’s about changing habits of the heart.”
New York Times By Dirk Johnson September 26, 2010 Madison, Wisconsin, USA They say money can’t buy happiness — but it can finance the research. When Richard Davidson (left in photo) , then a psychology doctoral student in the 1970s, told his advisers at Harvard that he planned to study the power of meditation, the
Gay Tibet (Lhasa)
Intro: Not surprising, LGBT folks are everywhere in the world including a small furtive scene gathering in the Tibetan capital city of Lhasa–but not quickly and not overtly. A reporter from Singapore’s Fridae.com webzine traveled to the high mountains to report on what a gay visitor can expect to find in that community. From Fridae.com