When Lorri Jean, chief executive officer of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, first visited China in 1998, she did not meet a single gay person. An international gay activist even advised her to studiously avoid raising the topic while in the country.

Lorri Jean, chief of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, says she has witnessed China's fast progress in LGBT community development. [Photo/Mei Le / for China Daily]

But today, she sits in the office of the Beijing LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) Center located in Chaoyang district, exchanging ideas with Chinese volunteers on gay rights and community development.

The center, established in 2008, offers a platform for LGBT people to make friends, and get legal and psychological help, according to its head, Fan Popo.

The country now has seven such centers, all of which have appeared only in the past five years.

"China's LGBT community is making amazingly fast progress. Even five years ago, it would have been difficult to imagine a place like the one where we are now," Jean says, referring to the Chaoyang center.

Jean and her team spent two weeks recently in Guangzhou and Beijing, meeting LGBT leaders and activists, holding lectures at universities, and talking to academics engaged in women's studies.

Her talk on the history of the gay movement in the United States at Beijing Normal University drew a packed crowd.

"It's interesting how many parallels there are between the experiences of LGBT people in the US and in China," she says.

A whole generation of young people are coming out and telling their parents, "I want to live my life being true to myself", she adds.

"That has happened very quickly. What took us 25 years in the US seems to have taken place within five years here," Jean says.

She attributes this largely to the work of local NGOs, such as Beijing LGBT centers and Aibai Culture and Education Center (ACEC).

Beijing LGBT center's Fan, who organized a gay film festival for the Shanghai Pride 2010, says the center has organized many activities promoting gay rights, such as holding a wedding ceremony for gay couples at the beginning of 2010.

ACEC, which was established in 1998, holds regular talks on gay rights on college campuses every month, attracting hundreds of students.

According to its president, Jiang Hui, the organization also sends four Chinese volunteers to the LA Center every year, to study how to run a NGO working in the field of gay rights.

Fan, who also did a stint in LA, says his visit gave Jean an insight into the challenges facing LGBT organizations in China, one of which is financing. While there are a number of NGOs involved in AIDS-related work, that also covers the gay population, there are very few LGBT organizations.

Being portrayed accurately in the media is another challenge. Jean says LGBT organizations need to step in to highlight and help overcome societal prejudices.

An activist for 30 years, Jean was the first openly gay or lesbian person to receive top-secret security clearance from the Central Intelligence Agency.

In 1989, she was appointed deputy regional director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, becoming the highest-ranking openly gay person in the US government.

Her story about promoting homosexual rights inspired millions of gays and lesbians all over the world.

She says that while there are many differences between China and the US, there are also many similarities in the struggle for LGBT rights.

"We (both) want to live our lives openly with honor, not in the closet."