Issues related to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community have gained more and more attention in recent years. Traditional values have been called into question and a gap between those who are accepting and those who are intolerant of our community has widened. However, within the LGBTQ scene itself there are conflicting interests, and these are especially evident in the growing LGBTQ scenes of developing countries. Specifically within China, there is competition for public acceptance and reform among marginalized groups, which in turn sheds light on some groups while further marginalizing others. To provide a brief background of the history of queer politics in China is simple. The available historical research largely focuses around homosexuality, especially as it relates to male-male relationships. LGBTQ discourse has more or less only crossed paths with China’s legal system in 1997 when homosexuality was decriminalized in China and in 2001 when China officially recognized that homosexuality was not, in fact, a psychological illness. This only relatively recent increase in specifically “homosexual” Chinese visibility not only exemplifies how far China has to go in terms of establishing a platform for the discussion of gay rights, but it also implies that within the LGBTQ community people who identify as “gay” or “lesbian” are more important than those who identify with some other minority in sexual orientation or atypical gender expression. For example, in her late 2013 article for the online news forum, The Atlantic, entitled “From the Shadows: China’s Growing Tolerance of Transgender Rights”, Asian Studies scholar Jill Levine makes clear that although many Chinese have come to be more accepting of transgender individuals, China’s legal system is still very far from granting transgender Chinese citizens fair and equal protection. She notes:

The government implemented guidelines in 2009 for restricting gender reassignment surgery. According to the new guidelines, a person must apply with the police to change the gender on their official registration before undergoing gender reassignment surgery. A person must also live openly as the gender with which they identity for a number of years before the surgery. They cannot have a criminal record, must be over the age of twenty and unmarried, and must have gone through a considerable amount of therapy. The candidate also must tell their immediate family about their plans for surgery.

From these few examples of legal “advancement” it is very clear that China’s growing LGBTQ community is more concerned with advocating for the rights and visibility of some marginalized groups than others. This is no surprise, considering that the Western LGBTQ movement that became the model for the global movement primarily seeks to fulfill the needs of white, gay, cisgender men. (For those who are unfamiliar with the term, “cisgender” is used to describe people who identify with the gender they were assigned at birth, as opposed to “transgender”.) I do not wish to imply that China’s progress in terms of gay acceptance is not necessary and productive for the LGBTQ movement in the long term. However, because of China’s unique position as a nation with a new and growing LGBTQ network, China has the potential to do that which other nations could not. That is to say, China could be the first country to manifest a community where all sexual minorities are represented equally in the public eye and in political legislation. As a participant and performer in this year’s Shanghai Pride events, it was very obvious that most of the events were organized and headlined by non-Chinese foreigners. Furthermore, it was very clear that tall, white, masculine, gay men were the ideal among Chinese gay men, as go-go dancers fitting this description were the most celebrated on stage and on banner advertisements. This prompts one to consider the Chinese gay male gaze, Western standards of beauty, and Chinese self-image, but these are topics for a separate discussion. In my opinion, whereas in the U.S. the white gay agenda is the foremost concern among the superficial LGBTQ community, Chinese sexual and gender minorities still have the capacity to stop the LGBTQ communities in China from these shortcomings. For these Chinese citizens, it is a project that involves dismantling a biased framework by promoting local talent, providing a platform for the visibility of all members of the LGBTQ spectrum in all aspects of art and nightlife productions, and encouraging native LGBTQ Chinese to decide for themselves what it means to be uniquely Chinese, queer, and proud. I believe that the Chinese LGBTQ movement will be much more successful as a whole if it is considered in this way as an intersectional movement, rather than one playing into the subjectivities inherent in the imported LGBTQ community model. Not every LGBTQ community across the world is the same, and the various Chinese communities that are growing have an amazing opportunity ahead of them. This article was written by Slater Stanley. Send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: Noel Konagai