Or is it mostly the same as the west.
Was just curious.
I lived there for about three years in total from 2013-2020. I’m not Chinese and I’m also
so I hung out with queer Chinese people and went to queer events but felt like a double outsider so I’m not confident in my response…I’d say queerness is accepted (or at least ‘tolerated’) in China but not advocated. There’s progress in some areas but sliding in others.
cw queerphobia/patsoc
spoiler
(western LGBTQ+ ‘pride’ is unfortunately sometimes seen as bourgeois decadence… I’ve seen an uptick in stuff on WeChat and bilibili specifically deriding the west for its collapse with the title/comments 男人守国门，女人守血脉 Men protect the country, women protect the bloodline’). This extends to a dislike for the ‘soft’ idol culture of 娘炮 ‘sissy’ men from south korea and japan, based on China’s historical and recent animosity. The french Olympics opening ceremony was a huge flashpoint for that, same as it was here)
I’m not in the country right now so I can’t say if this has translated into the lives of queer comrades being harder over there (I would be surprised if it hadn’t, but, not sure to what degree)
China’s also a huge place so, while Shanghai and Beijing may have prominent gay bars, clubs and districts, a third-tier or smaller city may have just a bar in a given district that’s known to the locals as ‘that place’. A lot of young queer people will be closeted until university or they start working, and move out of the home and to a different city, even a different province or across the country (and the country js huge). During this time, it’s kinda their window to be themselves, until they graduate or get to their late 20s when there’s an expectation from parents/grandparents that they pull their head in and have child(ren).
Despite the above, there are still people who have a live and let live mentality, which I’d say is pretty common. China’s a huge place with lots of people living different kinds of lives, it’s surprisingly tolerant in a kind of way that people can just do their own thing.
I maintain that capitalist imperialism is using rainbow capitalism as part of a larger effort to scapegoat the failings of capitalism onto minority groups.
Frighteningly I think it’s working to a significant extent.
western LGBTQ+ ‘pride’ is unfortunately sometimes seen as bourgeois decadence
I’m curious, is the US currently funding pro-LGBTQ+ groups/rhetoric inside of China? I imagine if Xi passed a serious LGBTQ+ rights law (perhaps on a similar level to Cuba’s recent law), would such funding from the US quickly switch to anti-LGBT groups?
I can imagine US dissent funding to skip LGBTQ+ entirely to focus on “underground churches”. A lot of us in the west grew up being told Christianity was illegal in China, despite there being millions of Christians in China openly attending openly Christian churches. I wonder if anyone has done a video essay on that kind of topic.
Groups no, not to any large degree. The Foreign NGO law that came into effect in 2017 saw a contraction or closure of many groups across different sectors. Incidentally, a number of WeChat groups I was in/accounts I followed also closed over that time. The foreign NGOs definitely funded smaller local NGOs and when that money and support dried up, they shut up shop.
As for rhetoric, I would posit yes.
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Short form video content is the main vehicle I’ve seen because it’s so easy to set up a douyin (tiktok) or WeChat ‘channel’ and subtitle western anti-LGBTQ+ content. I’ve seen JBP content under supposed ‘English learning’ channels (their channel name will be something like ‘English Everyday’. They have few followers but there are so many that I’m almost certain they’re O/S funded/supported. I’ve also seen way too much Andrew Tate and a surprising number of Christian Ministers being reupped. I block the JBP, religious stuff and block and report the Tate stuff but it comes back. I also use WeChat to learn Chinese so I usually try to avoid the English-language content but it still comes through.
Then there’s the overseas Chinese who film their lives and share on WeChat, and be like ‘oh look how life is over here in Ontario/Adelaide/Bristol’. Usually it’s like ‘heres a supermarket, here’s a hospital, here’s a school’ but occasionally I’ve seen these vloggers go to pride parades, or protests and their coverage is usually negative and the comments tend that way too. I’m guessing that’s because expats tend to be wealthier/more conservative so this is likely incidental, but this content is usually better received than the JBP stuff because it’s Chinese language, is presented as objective slice of life. If there were overseas funding of anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric, this would be an effective vehicle. Hasbara is already onto it within and outside China in turning people against the Palestinian cause but they’re absolutely hopeless at it and get called out 99% of the time, thankfully.
It’s hard to give a full picture because of the nature of these apps and the tailored fyp, but I want to get across as someone who actively avoids that content, I still get it. Just as bad as YouTube I’d say.
In my assessment, both pro/anti narratives are already there and are being pushed in equal measure, they’re two sides of the same coin, and dirt_owl is on the money that rainbow capitalism as a deliberate effect is shifting the ills of capitalism onto minority groups. The anti-LGBTQ+ narrative is almost directly being imported from the west too. Capitalism gets you on the swings and the roundabouts.
I’ve never been, but from what I’ve heard from others on the site China is both less actively pro-inclusion than some of the lib cities in the US or Australia, but also much less bigoted than anywhere else. So you might get weird looks and some confusion, but you’re unlikely to encounter deranged bigots as well. Kinda like how the US was before the culture war took off, outside of the South at least. Mixed bag.
Yeah, no deranged bigots outside of the South back in the good ol days. Those other states were basically bastions of rationality and tolerance until Fox News told them not to be
Yeah I know that it’s always been bad. But you really can’t deny that culture war BS has heightened tensions a great deal, and people are more alienated nowadays than ever before. But yes, lynchings didn’t only happen in the South and there have been plenty of antisocial fascists causing harm all over Amerikkka since the first colonizer stepped off the Mayflower.
The Chinese government didn’t try to use the non-treatment of AIDS as a way to wipe out queer people from existence that resulted in an entire generation of queer and trans people lost. The West have tried and are still actively trying to eliminate queerness from public life. China is far more humane and tolerant of GSM people than say TERF Island where legislation continues to be a threat to queer people everywhere.
In broad strokes a lot of older Chinese society is conservative and there’s a problem with toxic nationalism in China, I can’t speak on it any further than that since I’m not Chinese. Gay marriage is legal in China in Taiwan which is already leagues above colonized East Asian nations like Japan and ROK.
Queer identity is talked about in China and they have their own version of grindr from what I can remember reading about. In short, Family acceptance is the main challenge for a lot of Chinese GSM while institutional mainstream queerphobia comes in second.
Socialism is the only way for queer and trans people to get liberation, so China is far ahead of the rest of the world in that respect (besides Cuba).
The Chinese government didn’t try to use the non-treatment of AIDS as a way to wipe out queer people from existence that resulted in an entire generation of queer and trans people lost.
Yes, the government explicitly supports gay organizations that focus on HIV/AIDS advocacy. Which is certainly better than the initial American response, but by making HIV/AIDS activism the only avenue for queer politics to get government support, you’re going to 1. Lead people to conflate the two & 2. Not see much other progress.
Socialism is the only way for queer and trans people to get liberation, so China is far ahead of the rest of the world in that respect (besides Cuba).
Transgender liberation in China is objectively at a worse state than probably most of the United States, but the prospects are probably better. HRT is difficult to access, trans people are infantilized and even adults must be permitted by family members to get surgery. The legal rights of trans people have steadily improved, while access to DIY has gotten slightly worse. If you’d like a more thorough explanation of the healthcare and legal situation for trans people in China, I can get back to you in an hour.
There’s a video of Mandarin Corner, something like “Being a Lesbian in China” which is an interview of a mainland lesbian woman. It’s annecdotal but also extremely genuine since the channel is not here for politics but only for language learning
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Institutionally, there are legal protections and court precedent for protections based on sex, gender identity, and orientation, though not as strong as I’d like, and gay marriage is something that might be a while down the pipeline. Socially, there are a bunch of conservatives who think being gay or trans is yucky or whatever, but they all mind their own business unless it’s their own family.
The younger generation is far better about this, visited Chongqing last year and it was hella gay.
My impression is that it’s 10-20 years behind the West, but slowly getting better while the West is going backwards. In the TV shows I’ve seen from mainland China, men being interested in other men or men wearing women’s clothing is still a punchline, reminiscent of the 2000s in the West. Give it a couple of years.
The Founder of Diabolism donghua has queerbaiting instead of punchline, I’ve read that the source material is not baiting though.
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according to one of our users here there are femboys in Shanghai gay bars
Mao and Chinese socialism constantly emphasized the role of women (and other minorities) in revolution, and not just as mothers and caretakers, but you know, someone who can literally shoot and bomb the enemy or hold up half the sky in other ways.
Of course, just because you say something doesn’t mean you stay true to it, and neither of them were perfect in that regards. But just like how the US was largely founded by rich masons, christians, and slavers who hated anyone who wasn’t white or male, the characteristics of the nation were set during this inception and remain even if the nation has evolved for better or for worse.
China is a socially conservative country, but socialism and feminism were its founding principles. Much of the world is lib brained, i.e., they look up to institutions and their history for guidance and justification. I believe it can achieve actual feminist goals and more for other marginalized groups if it stayed true to its principals. Meanwhile, the US can let gay people marry or finally respect women enough to pay them fairly, let them take care of their babies, let them control their bodies, liberate them in whatever way, but if it stays true to its principles, then it will still be a capitalist and imperialist nation, and it will continue to bring the destruction that comes with it everywhere it goes, including the lives of women and minorities at home and abroad.
But specifically, abortion is legal in china to the point that the US supreme court cited China and North Korea’s abortion policies as reasons for why abortion is authoritarian and shouldn’t be allowed in the US. China also tries to prevent abortions in the first place via contraception and education which is good because abortion can be tough on the body, but is still available if necessary. I believe ‘gender reveal’ is also not allowed. China isn’t known to be a dangerous country, and women generally don’t need to fear being alone or out at night unlike many other countries, but of course it’ll also depend on location.
