Queer Politics in China: A Conversation with “Western” Activists Working in Beijing

Abstract

This project aims to provide perspectives on queer activism in China. This piece is an edited transcript of an interview/conversation with activists who have experience with Chinese queer organizing groups. This project addresses gaps in knowledge available to activists and scholars in the "West" about the complexities and diversity of queer activism in China. Addressing these knowledge gaps for Western audiences is important given that China, and by extension queer communities therein, are often homogenized, if not rendered invisible in mainstream Western discourse inside and outside China. Along the same line and aligned with QED's mission, this conversation provides experienced perspectives on how queer worldmaking praxis unfolds in China, a sometimes elusive geopolitical context even to those working within its ranks. This project is specific to queer activists mainly working in Beijing but also on projects that extend to broader regions of mainland China and, in some cases, overseas Chinese diaspora. The participants each maintain different levels of insider/ outsider status in relation to China and the Western world, meaning that our experiences place us each in different locations on that spectrum from insider to outsider. We use the demarcation "Western," in quotation marks, to signal a balancing act between our insider and outsider positions. Not all the participants are from Western countries, but we all have attended, are

Changing Contours of Chinese Queer Perceptions and the Taiwanese Model

“…Instead, there is an internalised rule that ‘primacy should be given to family ties and social harmony over an individual’s sexual identity or pleasure’ (Ho 2010, 10). LGBT organisations in China therefore operate in the ‘grey zone’, not protected by law but ‘ignored by the law enforcement authorities’ (Mareno-Tabarez et al 2014, 128).…”

“…Such a policy does not create the necessary space for sexual education. It tends to sensor LGBT-related audiovisual productions and offers no rights-based protections to the LGBT people (Mareno-Tabarez et al 2014, 116). Tian writes: …queer activism can only survive by being unconfrontational and depoliticized.…”

“…However, the state of LGBT rights in China was dismal because of the PRC's control over media, political control of civil society organisations and the absence of national protective laws and a specific ministry or government department to deal with issues related to sexual orientation and gender identity. This limited the development of LGBTQ+ culture and activism in modern China (Mareno-Tabarez et al 2014).…”

The Changing Landscape of Women's Rights Activism in China: The Continued Legacy of the Beijing Conference

“…In part because of China's lack of dialogue surrounding these issues, there is a reported gap in Western understandings of the LGBTQ movement in China and the ways in which feminism has informed this movement. 171 Starting in 2012, "a group of anonymous queer feminists engaged in fierce online debates with gay male activists, drawing heavily from queer theory to challenge what was seen as the latter's conservative biological essentialist views on sexuality." 172 The foundation of the Feminist Five also has roots in the LGBTQ world, as protestor and Feminist Five member Li Maizi describes herself as "a lesbian and an international slut," a satirical reference to the tendency in China to avoid any topics of a sexual nature, and is open about her experiences as an LGBT woman and how this shapes her protest.…”

The health and well-being of LGBTQ people in mainland China: The role of social work

“…In addition, the government’s semi-official ‘three no’s’ policy (i.e. no approval, no disapproval, no promotion) (Moreno-Tabarez et al, 2014) promotes an unpredictable and passive aggressive social environment for LGBTQ people. These social forces contribute to an extremely low self-disclosure rate (UNDP, 2016) and a unique phenomenon in contemporary Chinese society, that of ‘nominal marriages’, or legal marriages between a gay man and a lesbian to give the appearance of heterosexuality (Choi and Luo, 2016; Ren et al, 2019).…”