“Environmental factors are also critically important. It has long been noted that large urban centers tend to be more tolerant of same-sax sexuality than small, rural communities, and therefore youths from these two types of communities will likely face distinctly different normative pressure as they struggle to acknowledge, interpret, and accept their same-sex attraction. They will also have notably different degrees of access to support resources. Large urban centers are much more likely to have vibrant lesbian/gay/bisexual communities that sponsor youth groups and youth-focused recreational activities. Youths from rural areas might have little idea that such resources ever exist. These differences directly influence how youths experience and interpret their same-sex sexuality, give that access to supportive lesbian/gay/bisexual resources likely speed and ease the process of sexual-minority identity development.”

Environment factors have significant impact on sexual minority’s development and youth inquiry into their sexual questioning and self-identification. There is similar and, to some extent, more obvious situation in China. Traditional rural communities in China are composed of close acquaintances, extremely dominated by extended heterosexual families and comparatively low educated. For youth raised up in such environment, even they realize their difference with other people, they are lack of channels to learn about themselves. As adolescents, they bear different normative pressure from their peers, because they always feel the anxious and big “secret”. Because no one talks about such kind things, they are afraid of being treated as monster. I learned some of my lesbian friends from rural area even thought they are the only one in the world. Comparatively speaking, living in urban area, people at least have access to the knowledge. Today, although the LGBT issues are still lack of enough visibility, people’s attitude is more open than before in urban area. There have been hundreds of LGBT groups emerging. However, almost all of them are located in cities. These LGBT community based groups help and support sexual minority youth and provide them space to talk and share experience. They hold lots of activities to help ease the stereotyping and misunderstand of people. Youth in urban areas have more chance to s and teachers in some schools also begin to pay attention to this issue. Due to large gaps between rural and urban area, sexual minority youths in rural area are extremely lack of supports. People including teachers are lack of knowledge about the issue. Even if they know, most of information is distorted and discriminatory for LGBT people. Not mention supports, they even discriminate, discipline and expel sexual minority students. The distinct attitude to sexual minority between urban and rural people has a big impact on LGBT people deciding how they live. In the rural community, even when people clearly know about his sexual attraction, but have poor knowledge about what exactly it is, they choose to cover it and pretend he/she was “normal” like other people. That’s why the issue that gay people hide themselves by finding a heterosexual people to get married is common in China.