A  new social media campaign working to end cultural stigma against LGBTs in China is sweeping Chinese social networking platforms and encouraging gay Chinese men and women to come out of the closet.

In a series of ads, same-sex couples are shown at home along with a powerful tagline: "Love is not a choice. We did not choose to be homosexual. We just are. Happily, the world is big enough for all of us."

To drive the point home, another ad features a straight couple along with the words "We did not choose to be heterosexual."

"The majority [in China] still think being gay is either perverted or a kind of illness," 35-year-old China LGBT Awareness Campaign co-creator David Li told the Huffington Post. "And of course, due to the general censorship, it's extremely difficult to get positive LGBT information out to the public."

Li, an advocate and recent graduate to the Los Angeles LGBT Center's new Emerging Leaders Program, says he took the activism experience he gained in America to launch the campaign overseas.

According to statistics he gathered while working with the L.A. LGBT Center, 53% of Chinese LGBTs surveyed said they remained in the closet over fears of discrimination. Li says the statistics are shocking because in China, people view being gay as a choice.

"It's really about doing the groundwork and building the foundation and really changing the hearts and minds of people so that these things can become things that are debated publicly," he said.