Gao Yaojie

Government backlash Gao was initially tolerated by local officials, but later received more backlash for her "blunt talk and harsh words". Gao's mail was seized, and her phone tapped.

In 1999, the Ministry of Education named Gao "a model person concerned with the next generation," but did not invite her to the award ceremony. In 2002, she was named Time Magazine's Asian Heroine. In 2003, she was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service in Manila, Philippines. In both instances she was denied permission to travel outside China to accept the awards. along with three other women from China and three women from India, Guatemala, and Sudan at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on 14 March 2007.

In April 2007, the International Astronomical Union named the asteroid 38980 after Gao. On 20 September 2007, New York Academy of Sciences gave her "The Heinz R. Pagels Human Rights of Scientists Award."

On 7 February 2015, Gao received the 2014 annual "Liu Binyan Conscience Award". The award ceremony was held at Gao's New York apartment and more than 10 jury members and guests participated. The award was named after Chinese doctor Liu Binyan and the jury consisted of well-known Chinese writers.

Later life Gao's husband, Guo Mingju, died in 2006. A report on a visit to her apartment, while she was still under house arrest by Henan Province Vice Party Secretary Chen Quanguo, Henan Vice Governor Wang Jumei, and Henan Province Communist Party Organization Department head Ye Dongsong, who presented her with flowers and best wishes from the Henan Party and Government for the Chinese New Year, appeared in the Henan Daily and other Chinese media. On 16 February 2007, bowing to international pressure, the government gave her permission to travel to the United States to receive an award.

The house arrest of Gao was part of a continuing pattern of harassment, especially in Henan Province, of grassroots AIDS activists in China. In 2006, Wan Yanhai, another prominent activist, was detained and prevented from holding an AIDS conference in Beijing. Gao's blog, which she updated until 2009, became what Gao called a "battleground" between her supporters and detractors. Gao in her blog entry of 11 February denounced a hacking of her blog and noted that one visitor left a message that people were being paid 50 RMB each to leave negative comments. Gao wrote that the attacks began after she began describing many cases of people continuing to contract HIV through blood transfusions in Henan Province.

In July 2008, Gao's autobiography The Soul of Gao Yaojie (written in Chinese) was published by Ming Pao Publications Limited (Hong Kong), and the English version, The Soul of Gao Yaojie: A Memoir, was published in November 2011.

Life in the United States In May 2009, Gao fled to the United States, after fearing she would be placed under house arrest again. Upon arriving in the United States, she stayed briefly with a Chinese family and then moved to New York with a visiting fellowship from Columbia University. She settled in West Harlem.