By Yang Jie

About 10 Beijing-based organizations marked Tuesday's International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO) with a boycott against the popular social networking site douban.com. The organizations say Douban has shown an increasingly unfriendly attitude towards lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) groups.

The decision was made after Douban's behavior repeatedly contradicted its claimed purpose as a platform advocating sharing, openness and mutual aid, said Guo Ziyang from the Beijing Tongxing Working Group, which is among the boycott participants.

Activities initiated by related organizations have been continuously rejected and pictures deleted from the website since about two years ago, Guo told the Global Times.

"Even academic lectures couldn't get approval," Guo said.

According to a screenshot of an e-mail sent by Douban to Smile4Gay, a campaign to collect photos of smiling heterosexuals, the application to post the campaign on the site was turned down because "the activity might bring potential risks to the operations of the website."

"Our applications to set up an account or initiate a snapshot event have never succeeded, and we are unaware of the reasons," Luo Can, who is responsible for the Smile4Gay campaign, told the Global Times Tuesday.

Pictures of a bike tour Sunday to celebrate IDAHO were also deleted from Douban, according to Guo.

A special website was established Monday as an alternative, involving nine organizations including LGBT magazines, websites and NGOs.

A statement published on the website at anti-douban.com claimed they would never participate in Douban-initiated activities or share information or pictures on the site starting May 17, 2011.

Screenshots of Douban's rejection or removal e-mails were also posted as evidence.

Douban has denied the organizations' allegations.

"I believe it's just a misunderstanding," Lin Min, communications manager of Douban Inc, told the Global Times Tuesday.

"Pursuit of equality and respect has always been the cornerstone of Douban's development since its establishment in 2005," a statement from Douban Tuesday read.

"We have intimated in the guidelines that ‘Douban doesn't welcome any remarks of discrimination and hatred towards race, nation, religion… or sexual orientation,'" the statement continues, adding that this issue arose after inaccurate information was misconstrued and magnified in the "microblog era."

"It has betrayed its own tenet," said Guo, who claimed that a large number of Douban users are homosexuals who "have made remarkable contributions to its development."

"I feel sorry to lose such a platform where our target groups are active," said Luo. "But we still have other publicity channels, like Weibo, which have better interactivity, so the impact will be limited."

Both Guo and Luo said that even if the boycott only received limited support, it was important to make their stance clear on such a special day.

Huang Yingying, a professor from the Institute of Sexuality and Gender at the Renmin University of China, would not comment on the boycott for lack of familiarity with the subject, but expressed her concerns about homophobia in China.

As discussions about LGBT topics have increasingly come into the open in recent years, more people have begun to show understanding, and even support, of LGBT groups. But others have become anxious, especially parents who worry that their children will be "misled" into becoming homosexuals, Huang told the Global Times.

"Fear originates from ignorance," said Huang. "The root of the problem should be attributed to a lack of tolerance towards gender diversity."

Huang suggested that apart from the efforts of gay rights groups and academic researchers, the government should prioritize sex education to help children develop their understanding of sexuality.