I saw an independent poll from China once that I wished I’d saved which highlighted the nuance of the issue and the bullshit nature of polls. So grain of salt, this is my rough memory.

It had a question like “what is your opinion on homosexuality?” Slim majority negative

“What is your opinion of homosexuality in people you don’t know” overwhelmingly answered “none of my business”

“Would you be happy if your child was homosexual?” Large majority no.

But here’s the kicker there was a question “would you prefer your child be single, childless and heterosexual or married, have children and homosexual?” Overwhelmingly the latter option.

Like even if there’s homophobia it has different material roots and manifestations than it does in the west.

I remember when my chinese language partner sent me a little text she wrote in English about her home city Chengdu. There was a line in there about the city's culture where she said that in Chengdu, "you will often see homosexuals holding hands!"

She 100% meant this as a positive thing btw, she's a total sweetheart.

While there's no gay marriage, China does have civil unions. Which gives gay people equal rights in the eyes of the law. It was China's way to placate both sides. The conservatives and the liberals. Imagine, a country that works with and negotiates with its citizens to try to improve the outcome for everyone. Crazy right?

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2019-08-09/LGBT-couples-in-China-file-for-voluntary-guardianship-J15eC8QcrC/index.html

XHS is a platform dominated by young urban liberal women and isn't going to be particularly representative of Chinese society as a whole.

Like I don't think it's showing lies or anything, queer people can and do live safely and openly in China's cities, but the app might not show realities of rural conservatism, or the fact that homophobia is still very common within family units if not in broader society. Just something to be aware of.

Makes sense. Cuba had some great strides on LGBTQ issues too.

On the topic, I just came across an informative post here outlining proper lgbtq terms in Chinese:

[EDIT: Removed link because link tracker bot is threatening to delete my post, and I have no idea how to change the link and have it still work. I give up. Can we maybe add Xiaohongshu to a whitelist or something? Seems like this bot is preventing any links from that site being posted.]

EDIT 2: http://xhslink.com/a/CQUBvMecxdX3 apparently comments don’t actually get removed, so here’s the link.

I can’t copy and paste text from there on mobile so here are screenshots:

I knew. Real china fan hours rn.

Nearly all the LGBTQ people I have seen on XHS have been Chinese. I have not been seeking LGBTQ content out, so results could differ if you search for it.

I think when they say "don't really care/it's not important" they actually mean it, as opposed to Westerners who just use this as a smokescreen to hide their anti-queer sentiments.

I was watching this show in the hostel I'm staying at. My Chinese friends explained to me that the show was cancelled after the first episode was aired because the two male leads could be construed as being in a relationship. To be clear there is nothing overtly gay, they are just two attractive men who care about each other and who do not have any female love interests in the show.

When I remarked how ridiculous that was I got push back from two women who told me that it is wrong to expose children to the idea of being gay. I continued to say they were being ridiculous and that China can do better than that.

Generally people don’t give a damn about what you do in private, but you won’t see LGBT stuff on mainstream media etc.

Sometimes there are some subtly implied relationships but nowhere near as liberal as you’d see in the West. Chinese censorship is very strict (many TV shows had to be re-written because the censorship does not approve certain parts in them) and it has gotten worse since Covid because of a lot of racist propaganda against China.

My personal experience has been that LGBT spaces have regressed since Covid, but we’ll see what happens after Biden.

The most substantial predudice I've seen on xhs has been antisemitism, which was surprising due to how few Jewish people live in China

I'm sorry but I've had a very different experience on rednote while browsing the #Lgbt tag.

I've seen at least 3 different posts

There's some very positive and informed content on the app as well, but it's not all sunshine and rainbows by a long shot.

Edit: I can't post the link but just take a look around the #lgbt tag

The App is not really a good standard in gauging the sentiment nor the policies of the whole country.

The understanding of systematic discrimination is abysmal for the common people especially in Guangzhou in my personal experience.

i wish that the queer communities & spaces that i inhabit were just as well represented as they are in the united states; but exploring my latin american heritage over the decades has taught me that it's more of a function of historical cultural norms than china's political leanings.

i also know from experience that my communities & spaces barely exist at all in my country today and living in austin texas has given me a sneak preview of what this entire country will turn into in the near future; so i expect to move to another country by the next decade (and hopefully not against my will). i wish i could consider china as a prospective new home; but austin has taught me the hard way that i would not be happy there and that the west is the only place where these communities/spaces exist (even if it's barely at all), so it's where i must stay or else i literally go crazy like i did in the past.

I'm gonna be racist, it's not a governmental issue, Asians just don't get violent about stupid shit.

The structure of White hate is:

• 1/3 of whites intensely seethingly hate XYZ
• white institutions SOMETIMES pass laws in response outlawing hate against XYZ (after dragging their feet for multiple decades/centuries)
• the law is rarely enforced but whites will point to it as evidence that they're "more progressive" than other races while Black people get lynched in the year 2023

The structure of Asian hate is:

• nobody cares

Probably not as much as you think, XHS is one app that represents a microcosm of Chinese society and a specific demographic. You can't judge a country by what you see on a single social media app. For a reverse scenario, imagine judging all of the USA by what you see on US Facebook for instance. You'd think the entire country was full of conspiracy theorists who don't understand modern society.

Then there's also the halo effect that's going on with Chinese users trying to be nice and welcoming to the foreigners, and Americans being on their best behaviour so they don't screw this up. So I wouldn't take everything at face value at this point in time. Something like that won't last forever, eventually the halo will wear off, on both sides.

I have some questions on LGBT content in Chinese webcomics, since English-speaking yuri communities always bring this up when they bash China:
1: what exactly happened to Tamen de Gushi? The story I always hear is that the CCP banned the webcomic because they showed the characters kiss.
2: I noticed some Chinese webcomics (specifically Straight Girl Trap and I Got a Girlfriend From a Shooting Star), whenever the characters kiss, would draw white spots/ have convenient light rays covering where the lips touch. For me it feels weird since these stories already have the characters in an official romantic relationship. Why do kisses get covered even when they have no issue showing a same-sex relationship in the same comic?

i've seen multiple lgbtq couples out and about in various chinese cities (guangzhou especially and i've been told it's not even the gayest city there)

i myself look kinda androgynous and i got a few (polite and friendly) questions about my sex in some of the less diverse cities, but nobody was ever unkind or confrontational about it, which i can't say about the US

there was also a foreign series about a gay couple i think that blew up in china a couple years back. i forget what it's called but i remember the wikipedia article having some bullshit about it being popular "in spite of depictions of homosexuality being banned"