Hearing talk that the new Harry Potter movie is being “censored” by removing talk abt Dumblefuck and Grimshit being in love at one point or another. Thing is, there’s never any sources provided, especially never in the Chinese perspective, it doesn’t line up with what China would usually do (as there is a lot of LGBT media in China and popular LGBT people who get representation across the nation). And yet people often smear the country as being less progressive as the US, the country that has passed extremely discriminatory laws against LGBT people while in China there’s trans healthcare. Doesn’t make sense. Any of y’all know more about the subject than I do who can send me sources about the topic?
Gay rights in China are being granted on technicalities but even these pretty lib sources can reach for the low hanging fruit of official govt documents. It seems like the government is being worn down by shifts in public opinion, but very slowly compared to Vietnam/Cuba. Also bear in mind that a great number of ‘civilized’ western countries lifted their bans on homosexuality around the same time China did in the 90s.
Some Vids
Beijing LGBT Center - Transgender in China includes various (unfortunate) stats on trans topics and examples of famous trans/nonbinary people in Chinese media.
CGTN - Being True to Yourself more of a documentary style piece with a moderately pro-chinese stance.
CGTN - Coming Out with Chinese Characteristics mixes experiences with monologues from public figures. Stats near the end show that lgbt rights issues progress slowly in China not due to culture war style rejection but simple ambivalence to the challenges faced by invisible minorities.
Yennefer Fang - A Day of Trans notable in that the producer helped direct The Eight Hundred. It is a more personal look at things, but tells a story about differences over three generations. There’s some hints that lgbt people in China are getting their politics from the US, and the trans man depicted seems to have an easier time gaining acceptance due to gender norms.
Fan Popo - Mama Rainbow a bit older, mostly being interviews of parents of gay children. Shows how the most common opinion generally is “other people’s kids being gay is okay, but my kids no.” But if everyone does that then…
Chen Leona - I Am Me another documentary about personal experiences of transpeople.
On the topic of censorship…
This article is lib but the Korean perspective is less sensationalized than western tabloids. Chinese reactions against ‘pretty boy/sissy man’ cultural symbols is (though mildly problematic due to potential overlap with queer culture) technically aimed at curbing interest in hypercapitalist Korean pop culture which is spreading across Asia quite rapidly. It’s at the point where K-Pop groups are getting members from Taiwan, Mainland China, and Japan while training members to be multi-lingual in order to increase market penetration across multiple countries. The Chinese govt is very clumsily resisting this by making weak notices to producers and some purchase limits. This doesn’t change the fact that some of the most popular Chinese media properties feature pretty boy main characters.
Whether gay content itself is actively being/should be censored seems to be a heavily debated topic in Chinese social media. But finding translations of these discussions leads to very biased western sources.
Like they’re liberals or they’re gaining important education on LGBTQ matters and support?
A little bit of both. Since the party isn’t cultivating the LGBT movement at home it seems like LGBT NGOs and their proponents are taking on some elements of western liberal idpol since that’s where a significant amount of resources come from, and well-off/influential LGBT people are being educated in US colleges and bring those ideas back with them, the good and the bad. I don’t have solid numbers though, just what I’ve seen in stuff similar to what I’ve linked.