A southern Chinese university has approved the country's first legally registered student union for gays and lesbians, a newspaper reported Saturday.

The Sun Yat-sen University in Zhuhai, a city in Guangdong province, gave the union its blessing after considering the application for a mont.

The union, called Happy Together, aims to promote AIDS education and awareness of gay issues, the paper quoted chairwoman Liao Mingzhu as saying.

The Sun Yat-sen University has a reputation for openness, the report said. In 2003, it raised a controversy by staging "The Vagina Monologues," a play with graphic sexual descriptions, the report said.