Fighting for LGBT Rights With Chinese Characteristics?

May 17 is International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia (IDAHOT). It’s unclear when the Chinese LGBT community began to privately celebrate the day together with the rest of the world, but IDAHOT has for the first time sparked widespread public discussion this year, at least on Chinese social media.

While more and more Chinese LGBT individuals are publicly and actively fighting for greater social acceptance in China, they have to be careful not to cross the government’s “red line.” Otherwise they will be accused of “colluding with foreign powers,” “disrupting social stability,” or even “trying to overthrow the Chinese government.”

I Am Gay. Will You Hug Me?

In 2002, the Chinese Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from the list of psychiatric disorders in its official published guidelines. This change is regarded as a significant landmark by China’s LGBT community. Since then, gays and lesbians have been seen as “normal” people in China, at least on paper, even though most still chose to hide their sexual orientation due to social pressure.

Now, a decade and a half later, the Chinese LGBT community is no longer content with staying “in the closet.” Meanwhile, social acceptance of LGBT people is apparently increasing in China. Recently, in various cities across China, a social experiment has been conducted again and again by the LGBT community: a blindfolded activist stands on a crowded street wearing a T-shirt that says, “I’m gay. Will you hug me?”

According to multiple videos posted online, the Chinese public has shown remarkable receptiveness. A large number of passers-by – men and women, old and young, alone and with groups – stopped to give a hug to the activists, who were standing still with arms outstretched. The videos went viral and won thousands of thumbs-up on Chinese social media.

Meanwhile, China has been quite unrestricted and even progressive when it comes to the “pink economy,” a slang term referring to the commercialization of the LGBT community. Shrewd entrepreneurs have developed a series of products, online applications, and services tailored to the LGBT community. For example, a group of Chinese travel agencies launched a special service – albeit with a low profile – designed for LGBT people to get married in foreign countries, since gay marriage is not legal in China.

In addition, the largest gay social networking app in the world, Blued, was founded in 2012 by a Chinese man, Geng Le. With its motto “Changing LGBTQ people’s life with science and technology,” this free app now reportedly has 27 million users, and is valued at $600 million.

A gay man, Geng once said in an interview that “homosexuals usually consume three times more than heterosexuals, because homosexuals have no family, no children, and no additional financial burden.”

“At the same time, since homosexuals are more likely to be discriminated against, they need to prove their value with a better career and a higher income. They tend to aspire for a quality life and they have more desire for consumption," Geng added.

Blued now is seen as an icon of the Chinese pink economy. Geng himself is also regarded as one of the most successful openly gay men in China. In 2012, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang met with Geng personally and praised him for his contribution to AIDS prevention and awareness work in China. Since then, Chinese authorities have treated Geng in a positive way.

The Hidden Hand Fights Back

However, even while the Chinese public, especially the younger generation, is becoming increasingly open-minded toward the LGBT community, the hidden hand of censorship unexpectedly dealt the community a blow.

In June 2017, the China Netcasting Services Association (CNSA) – a quasi-governmental organization – issued its General Rules for Online Audiovisual Programs. In keeping with the Chinese government’s constantly tightening control over China’s internet, the CNSA document placed strict and extremely detailed restrictions on what can and cannot be produced in online programs.

Among many problematic regulations, one item reads:

Those programs that express or display abnormal sexual relationships and sexual behaviors such as incest, homosexuality, sexual metamorphosis, sexual assault, sexual abuse, and sexual violence should not be broadcasted.

Thanks to this document, homosexuality has been once again been officially listed as “abnormal.” And despite sporadic protests online, the LGBT community failed to succeed in pushing for a change to the regulations.

These rules are having a real-world impact. Since April, a series of movies with LGBT elements, such as the Oscar-winning film Call Me By Your Name, have been secretly banned from release in movie theaters. More recently, a Chinese TV station deleted scenes of gay dancers when rebroadcasting the Eurovision Song Contest, the popular international annual song competition.

China’s Weibo also announced that it would clean up all content that had violated the General Rules for Online Audiovisual Programs on the platform, including LGBT content. Then a series of accounts advocating for LGBT rights were banned.

Weibo’s policy immediately triggered a backlash. Inspired by the #MeToo hashtag, the “I am gay too” hashtag went viral on Weibo. Many Weibo users used the hashtag to reveal their sexual orientation and protested against Weibo. Although the hashtag was later banned by Weibo, the company finally decided to reverse its previous ban on gay content, a rare victory for the LGBT community.

The LGBT Rights Movement: A Foreign Conspiracy?

The struggle between the LGBT community and the government’s hidden hand reached a boiling point ahead of IDAHOT on May 17.

On May 16, the U.S. Embassy in China announced on its Weibo account that it was going to hold a public event to commemorate IDAHOT. Posted together with a picture of the rainbow flag, the announcement said in Chinese:

Isolation cannot win the battle. The LGBT community has learned to establish coalitions against violence, for legal change, and for changing ideas and thoughts. If the rights of other groups are not guaranteed, the rights of a particular group cannot be secured either. The LGBT groups thus tend to ally with other vulnerable groups, including immigrants, poor people, and ethnic minorities… The Beijing American Center has invited a group of LGBT community representatives to discuss how alliances lead to success. Please join us...

Later, the European Union, some other Western countries, and even the United Nations expressed their support for IDAHOT on their Weibo accounts.

The posts triggered hot debate on Weibo.

While a group of netizens supported IDAHOT, a large number condemned the U.S. government, as well as other foreign powers, for their “blatant attempt to incite instability within China through the rainbow movement.”

An unknown Weibo user, going by the username Calm Kafka, wrote a lengthy post on the topic. Although claiming that he supports LGBT rights, he strongly urged Chinese people not to fall into the “trap” set by foreign powers. What the U.S. government wants is a “color revolution” to “overthrow the Chinese government,” he argued. “It is detrimental not only to the homosexuals or the heterosexuals, but to the whole Chinese nation!” As of this writing, this long post had been reposted 13,331 times and won 6,500 thumbs-up.

Such conspiracy theories are becoming increasingly popular in China. The Chinese authorities, in fact, appear to agree with this viewpoint.

Many Chinese Communist Party periodicals have published articles calling for the Chinese government to “beware of the Western cultural infiltration.” The Chinese authorities have been on the alert for such “Western infiltration” for quite a while. In this context, the rainbow movement, together with the #Metoo movement, has been labeled as part of a foreign conspiracy. Although the Chinese authorities haven’t said it publicly, they have been pointedly avoiding the rainbow flag (or the #MeToo hashtag).

As IDAHOT approached, many Chinese college students received notifications from their universities warning that they should not attend any related events or wear any rainbow symbols on May 17, because the event organizers were “colluding with foreign powers.” These messages were shared online by some furious students later.

An unusually large number of security guards and policemen have also been allocated to Beijing’s 798 art district — one of the most culturally diverse districts in the city — just to block people who wear rainbow badges from entering. Video clips showing a security guard hitting and knocking down a woman who tried to enter the district for an event were circulated online. It is reported that all events celebrating IDAHOT in the 798 art district were called off.

Clearly from the perspective of the  Chinese authorities, LGBT groups who are trying to establish coalitions for an organized push to assert their rights — as the U.S. Embassy suggested —  have crossed the “red line.”