LGBTQI groups found rare freedoms online, but this year, many were shut by censors. It feels like slowly being sanded down, said one member.

Across China, queer college societies, which had been rare spaces to safely push boundaries, were being swiftly erased from the Chinese internet. In July, 14 of the largest and most prominent accounts were banned, cutting connections between thousands of members scattered across the country and casting them adrift.

The struggle has worsened. Things that were acceptable to speak about online before can now open you up to attack. It’s not just LGBTQI issues, in Mei’s view. Anything rights-related is now a target.

When the country went online in the 1990s, so did many queer people who wanted to find others like them. Gay sex was decriminalized in China in 1997, but by then, there was already a thriving online community. (…) “Censorship wasn’t as strict,” he said of those early years. “It gave you the false belief that things would get better.”

Though these apps present themselves as allies to the gay community, they have aligned with the censors. Blued assigns each user “rainbow credits,” which they deduct if users violate community regulations. Leo has found this includes trying to organize an activity. When a user loses credits, their profile faces more restrictions, the final stage of which is being frozen. Blued’s parent company is increasingly gathering a monopoly over queer online interactions — in August 2020, it bought the largest lesbian dating app, Lesdo, which it shut down this year.

  • southerntofuOP
    91·
    3 years ago

    On the topic of queerness in “popular republics”, you can’t exactly deny there’s a strong history of repression. If you’re interested, there’s very good articles about the varying history of homosexuality throughout USSR history (from the first wave of revolutionary feminism in 1917 to the gulag-steering policies of Stalin). I don’t know of good resources about this topic in China, which is why i found this article interesting: in it you learn that homosexuality was decriminalized “only” in 1997 (which is not so much later than western Empires like France), which could explain how queerphobic sentiment/repression is still widespread.

    It’s also worth mentioning how queerness can be framed as an anti-materialist mental framework (though large sections of the queer crowd are also materialist feminists), and how it’s been weaponized by western empires in their colonial enterprise. Just like feminism historically (“white men saving brown women from brown men”), LGBT issues are being framed as if the West is really open and tolerant and human rights are respected here (which is blatantly false in many regards), and African/Asian countries are backwards people full of prejudice that need to be educated for their own good.

    All in all, the article doesn’t seem to push a specific colonial/racist narrative, and appears to paint a factual portrait of the political situation in China surrounding organization and public debate around queerness. I say this as someone who hasn’t been to China (and therefore really has no clue), but who heard similar accounts from chinese speakers involved in LGBT communities.

    • pingveno
      11·
      3 years ago

      LGBT issues are being framed as if the West is really open and tolerant and human rights are respected here (which is blatantly false in many regards), and African/Asian countries are backwards people full of prejudice that need to be educated for their own good.

      This has not in general been the narrative that I’ve sensed. Usually it is more that Western countries generally (not always) have progressed further on LGBT issues. There are outliers on either side, but I don’t think that’s too much of tough case to make.

      • southerntofuOP
        21·
        3 years ago

        And that’s historically wrong. There’s a long history of queerness all across the planet, and in many places, the normative cisgender heterosexual order has been imposed (in blood) by western Empires and the catholic church (among others) in their colonial enterprises. I would recommend reading Afrotrans by Mikaëla Danjé but i don’t think there’s an english translation.

        • pingveno
          1·
          3 years ago

          Sure, but I’m speaking to the present situation. I currently would fear for my freedom if not my life traveling to many African countries as a gay man. Almost every country that still criminalizes LGBT people is in Africa or the Middle East. They have the power to change, and other countries in those regions have changed. So of course don’t tar all of African and Asia with one brush, but when countries fail to uphold LGBT rights don’t give them a pass on oppression because someone who’s not even from Africa wrote a book.