Chinese people tend to frown on anything that goes against the cultural norm. Chinese people point, stare amd shout at people just because they are foreign. I would not be suprised to see them doing the same to someone else who is different.

I do still hear and see a lot of ignorant bullshit regarding homosexuals from the so called "modern/new/young/educated/urban Chinese", I don't think it stems from hatred (God Hates...) but rather from ignorance, what little sexual education there is in schools is very poor, as well as cultural and family pressures and the habit of looking at people who don't conform with suspicion.

Is homophobia on the rise though? It's hard to say for me, as this is a topic which is very difficult to speak about with Chinese people. And anti gay hate crimes would be underreported.

Actually a survey was done in our university .And most of the students said that they were ok with it.But I am not sure about others.From what I gather most of the people are against it .

a former student asked for some advice at the end of last semester because he is doing his Master's in the UK.

He said he was worried about (his words) "all the homosexuals annoying him because he was so good-looking"

After i picked myself off the floor from laughing i asked where he heard that, and his reply was his Chinese agent.

it sounds like many people were ok with it, but there were those feeding paranoia with misinformation, mainly from the older more 'traditional' generation.

personally, i wonder if it just an attempt on the part of (mostly students) to appear 'modern' in our eyes. I would like some genuine Chinese opinions

homophobia is pretty gay, seems to fit China well. 

Heterophobia is definitely on the rise here. 

Officially China has no homosexuals among its population, however there are more and more gay couples openly displaying themselves in public, especially in more "opened" cities like Shenzhen, Shanghai or Guangzhou, and surprisingly enough I saw quite a few gay couples in Chengdu recently.

Lesbians? I am sure that there are also women who like women in China, but it's harder for them to show it than it is for men who like men, especially considering the status of women and the gender gap, so many young heterosexual men with no hope to ever find a bride, they would turn mad when seeing two women who are happy together.

But most people in China still consider homosexuality as some sort of sexual or psychological disease.

No.  Otherwise why would there exist 腐女?

one of my ex-coworker is a gay but he hasn't come out yet, just confessed to some of his friends. according to him, it's kind of a bad thing that you're gay if you're a business man here, because chinese people may not trust a gay for serious business. well...

In Shanghai, I saw two girls making out inside the Hershey's chocolate store.  They didn't seem to be shy about it.  But according to the government, homosexuality is a western trait.  It doesn't exist in China.

Homophobia is gay. Seriously. 

i have noticed that chinese living the homosexual lifestyle tend to hang out in foreign bars and have had discussions with them and they state that they get hassled in chinese clubs, but foreigner dont care what they do or who they like and they feel more comfortable around foreigners, not sure thats a good thing to brag about in a harmonious tolerant society.

Conformity in China is a necessary custom that is also a cultural trait. If something happens out of the norm, people will frown upon it, especially certain western cultures and customs. Anything that is not Chinese or near Chinese is not normal. This trait comes from decades of education that excludes other cultures. On the flip side, bigger cities like Shanghai and Beijing seem to slowly tolerate (not accept) non conformity if no violence is involved. But of course you still get small pockets of extremists who will condemn abnormal or unfamiliar cultures. This happens in any society, not just China, it's just the degree of severity where it exists.

Fun fact about the 5000 years of history. Several of the Han dynasty emperors where homosexuals. So basically the entire country is founded upon homosexuality. I can now understand why school ban boy/girl hand holding.

I think that most of you are right, there is still a certain degree of homophobia, especially with the older generation.

But @Scandinavian, don't you think that same-sex hand holding is really common here anyway? In a platonic way - I think it is much more common than in Europe, so it would be quite hard for authorities to ban it, haha.

Also I have noticed that sometimes if you are near a gay bar or a club people will point at the door and be like "oh what is that?" and someone else will be like... "shhhhh... that is a gay bar!" But honestly I reckon that is more about education and awareness rather than about condemning homosexuality. 

However, I think there is actually less obvious and out-loud-in-your-face homophobia from the general people. Less shouting of profanities when you are walking in public holding hands etc, which is actually extremely common throughout much of Europe, regardless of 'liberal' government policies.