Privately, Ma ran a website popular with China's stigmatized gay community, estimated to be 70 million people. Publicly, he wore a cop's uniform and enforced laws that included a ban on homosexuality (which was outlawed in China until 1997), and was married to a woman.
He said he first fell in love with a man while at the police academy in the 1990s.įor years, he led a double life. 'I want to be able to stand up and tell people that there is a guy named Geng Le in China, who is gay, living a very happy life, who even has his own adopted baby,' said Ma, referring to the pseudonym he has used since his days writing an underground blog about gay life in the small coastal city of Qinghuangdao.īack then, he needed to hide. His corner office at Blued is decorated with pictures of near-naked men wrapped in rainbow banners, alongside official portraits of him shaking hands with top business and government officials. 'I wanted to find a lover, but it was so hard.' I felt so tiny,' said Ma Baoli, thinking back 20 years. 'Back in my time, we felt depressed, isolated and lonely. It helps that the CEO of Blued has become something of an icon in the nascent Chinese gay movement, fighting his way from a youth spent desperately looking for love online in small-town internet cafés.
