May 17 marks the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia. On May 17, 1990, the World Health Organization removed homosexuality from their list of mental disorder. On April 25 of this year, Shanghai held China's first special recruitment for LGBT (an abbreviation that stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexuality and Transgender).

Bi Xinle, the organizer of the event, is an American who has lived in China for nearly ten years. He wants to help LGBT people to understand corporate culture: which firms regard pluralism as their core value and prohibit discrimination against persons of different sexual orientation.

According to a 2013 survey conducted among LGBT people by Aibai Culture and Education Center, 38 percent of the respondents had suffered verbal abuse or mockery, 30 percent of them did not get proper respect at the workplace, and nearly 13 percent had lost promotion opportunities.

Bi Xinle has founded a nonprofit network platform aimed at helping professional LGBT people. He believes that some Chinese companies lack policies and training to teach employees to treat LGBT people properly.

He hopes that one day, LGBT people "will not feel uncomfortable due to being honest about the person that they are".

He sent invitations to about 150 companies, but only 17 – the majority of them foreign companies - participated in the job fairs. The four-hour recruitment attracted more than 400 job seekers. Many of them were fresh graduates.

The largest pressure on LGBT people comes from gossip and speculation from their colleagues, Bi thinks. Coming out of the closet or revealing their sexual orientation will cause a change in attitude of colleagues and some people will even lose their jobs. However, choosing to hide themselves will bring greater stress.

Many Chinese enterprises might think that LGBT people lack a sense of responsibility, because they will never get married and have children. Some believe they have a mental disorder.

However, Bi has seen a lot of progress in the way that LGBT people are treated in his ten years in China.

He believes Chinese companies should do better in the following aspects: first, to explicitly prohibit discrimination policies targeting LGBT people; second, companies should incorporate how to treat LGBT people into staff training, so that if they have problems they can ask the HR department to help and protect them; third, a group should be set up to allow LGBT people to make their voice heard and promote common sense about LGBT.

This article was edited and translated from 《同性恋招聘会主办者：职场应该包容我们不必伪装》, source:bjnews.com.cn