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‘It’s difficult to survive’: China’s LGBTQ+ advocates face jail and forced confession
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2024
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Not that I am OK with how China is dealing with these things, but this is not exactly an LGBTQ+ issue. As per the article, the reasons for the arrests are kidnapping, not any law against being gay. In fact, China has essentially civil unions for gay people who want to be in a recognized relationship.
Ironically, in this case, it's not a government problem but a societal one. The older generation is very conservative. They set the tone for a lot of censorship. So while your free to be gay or whatever, you can't talk about it or make media about it. This is to not offend the older generation.
The older generation can inflict immense damage on their children as the article points out. If you disobey your elders like your parents, the police will tend to favor the elders as we see in this article.
As a cultural issue, this has kind of been the case since Confucius times. China is kind of famous for over controlling and overbearing parents. And in this case, the government backs them even if the official policy is to let them be. For example in 2017 China ruled that gay conversion camps illegal. Yet the problem still persists in 2019.
Of course as per usual, when the government doesn't know what to do, it tries to censor everything and hopes it goes away on its own.
Like I said, not OK with it, but we should all be aware what it is and be aware of biased reporting from the news.
Did you read the article beyond the first paragraph? ONE case was related to a 'kidnapping' accusation. The rest of the examples have been about systematic persecution of LGBT related parties
Yes I did. Here's a few quotes from that article.
And
As well as it gives several examples of abusive families who manipulate the law to attack those who help their children. Like the trans woman who tried to protect the run away trans woman.
I said it's not good. But it's not the government pushing this. It straight says so in the article in the quotes I'm posting.
As I pointed out, kidnapping is a side issue, and unrelated to the majority of the cases.
From the article:
How is this not directly caused by the govt, and 'not exactly an LGBTQ+ issue'?
I've already talked about it. When China doesn't know what to do they censor everyone. But there are still gay bars and gay pride has gone into dance clubs.
Heres a guide on where to go.
https://www.travelgay.com/beijing-gay-bars-and-clubs
Heck, they censored one of their most popular videos games genshin impact because it was too sexy. They censor straight sex too. In fact you could argue if they didn't censor gay pride it would be preferential treatment.
Hell your quote literally says it.
Ok, so it's semantics.
Look, if the LGBT population is being persecuted for being LGBT, that makes it an LGBT issue. If others are being affected as well, that means there are multiple, and broader issues, but that doesn't make it any less an issue for the LGBT population. And it is very much being pushed by the govt.
Everyone is getting prosecuted equally so no it's not an LGBTQ issue anymore than breathing is an LGBTQ issue.
What is with that stance?
'They're being persecuted for being LGBT, but others are being persecuted as well for unrelated reasons, so it's not an LGBT issue'.
If you're being persecuted for being LGBT, it's an LGBT issue! It doesn't matter who else is being persecuted, it's not mutually exclusive!
Again it's not about LGBTQ. It's anything to do with dressing different or talking about sex. That's why boy love films are so popular in China. They dress them in fancy traditional garb and have sexual tension but no kissing or sex. Hell some of them got so popular they got onto Netflix.
Here's the main Chinese propaganda mouth piece promoting it.
https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1168331.shtml
right, but you do understand that these things are interrelated. not all anti-LGBT policies explicitly target only LGBT people. if you restrict dressing "differently" and talking about sex, the people who dress differently or have different kinds of sex (queer people) are systemically disadvantaged when compared to straight and cis people. and if there's bigotry in your society, there's no guarantee that these restrictive policies are going to be applied to everybody equally.
like, bathroom bills don't have to mention trans people to target trans people exclusively, because very few other groups of people have the motivation to choose a bathroom that doesn't align with their assigned sex at birth. if you restrict a behavior queer people are statistically highly likely to engage in, the fact that it could also impact other groups doesn't make it not a queer issue.
Yes, but they are applying it equally. They are banning all mentions of sex, not just queer sex. They are censoring anything that shows too much skin, not just queer dressing. This is why I pointed out them censoring a video game made for kids. Basically they said a leotard was too revealing.
The problem isn't the enforcement. The problem is the reporting. As society there reports against the LGBTQ more than other ones. Again, that's not the government doing anything unequal or targeting. Which is why I said it's not exactly an LGBTQ issue. It becomes one because of the older conservatives.
look, if the realities of a system or policy are statistically more likely to target queer people, it is a queer issue lol. restrictions on discussing sex publicly disproportionately affect those who are sexual minorities, because all "legitimate" channels for learning about sex are usually targeted for heterosexual couplings. there's a reason why queer people have a vested interest in sex education. modesty laws are also more oppressive for queer people by their nature.
anything that regulates how people dress also regulates gender expression, because clothing in most of the world is gendered. there are things that women wear that men can't, things that are "too much skin" for women and not men. if you legislate what people can wear, you have a very good tool for targeting queer folks, even if it theoretically could also be used to target other kinds of self-expression. you can't make a modesty law that isn't also anti-queer by extension, because modesty as a concept is defined by patriarchy, heteronormativity, and cisnormativity.
Yup, most of the world has gendered clothing. But this is China, where for decades they rejected that. Their school uniforms still rejects gendered clothing.
https://www.koreaboo.com/stories/chinese-school-uniforms-korean-students-jealous/
It's only relatively recently come back from Western fashion.
They're literally trying to fight against what your talking about to such a degree that even your normal concept of gendered clothing is different. And I know that's hard to wrap your head around, but that's exactly why I'm saying, it's not exactly what you think.
*Edit: Let's look at this from another angle. China has been trying to enforce gender neutral ideas for some time, like gender neutral clothing. All this push for gender equality has lead China to become the home to the most female billionaires in the world.
https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/trends/wu-yajun-china-has-two-thirds-of-worlds-self-made-women-billionaires-meet-the-richest-8296901.html
The Chinese government is 25% female.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/239113/sshare-of-women-in-chinese-national-parliament/
So it's in China's position that while not great now, by constantly pushing gender neutral laws and trying to prevent sex being displayed in public, they'll create equality.
As you point out though, that often leads to oppression and other terrible side effects.
I'm saying, I do not believe i personally understand the situation enough to make a judgement call. I just want people to be aware of what's actually happening and not that it's some kind of governmental anti-LGBTQ+ push. It's China trying to be China for better or worse.