Yeah, it was a layer of misrepresentation. It’s part of a push by the chinese government to curtail racist western beauty standards like skin bleaching and “double eyelid” cosmetic surgery to look more white. That shit has caught on huge in American-occupied South Korea (wonder why) and is attached to a lot of Kpop.
If I remember correctly, the policy was focused on requiring wider representation of gender expression in male actors besides the KPop style guys. Many actors were starting to feel pressured into skin bleaching and getting cosmetic surgery on their eyes to get work in the industry and also appeal to their fans, the majority of whom are straight women.
The party brief discussing this used a slang word in quotations as an example which doesn’t translate correctly when you throw it into google translate. I think it translated to “sissy”, which apparently wasn’t a very accurate translation. Still, that word choice also rightfully got shit in China because it is a word used by reactionary conservative boomers. This added to the confusion once the story made it over here.
This was from when the first wave of “China is banning le fembois” talking points showed up. I checked out after I saw that there was this degree of ambiguity to it because:
I don’t live in China
I don’t speak Mandarin
Our entire media apparatus is actively trying to find every angle it can to build support for a cold/hot war with China.
This then got complicated even further online because a chunk of stupidpol motherfuckers started concern trolling / stanning for China in support of them banning “sissy boys”. That then poisoned the well if you pushed back on the articles claiming this stuff.
I’m sure there’s other shit and maybe more info has come out since then. China legitimately does still have a lot of issues it needs to work on with LGBTQIA rights. This struck me as noise that got in the way of being able to actually discuss those problems.
Yeah, it was a layer of misrepresentation. It’s part of a push by the chinese government to curtail racist western beauty standards like skin bleaching and “double eyelid” cosmetic surgery to look more white. That shit has caught on huge in American-occupied South Korea (wonder why) and is attached to a lot of Kpop.
If I remember correctly, the policy was focused on requiring wider representation of gender expression in male actors besides the KPop style guys. Many actors were starting to feel pressured into skin bleaching and getting cosmetic surgery on their eyes to get work in the industry and also appeal to their fans, the majority of whom are straight women.
The party brief discussing this used a slang word in quotations as an example which doesn’t translate correctly when you throw it into google translate. I think it translated to “sissy”, which apparently wasn’t a very accurate translation. Still, that word choice also rightfully got shit in China because it is a word used by reactionary conservative boomers. This added to the confusion once the story made it over here.
This was from when the first wave of “China is banning le fembois” talking points showed up. I checked out after I saw that there was this degree of ambiguity to it because:
This then got complicated even further online because a chunk of stupidpol motherfuckers started concern trolling / stanning for China in support of them banning “sissy boys”. That then poisoned the well if you pushed back on the articles claiming this stuff.
I’m sure there’s other shit and maybe more info has come out since then. China legitimately does still have a lot of issues it needs to work on with LGBTQIA rights. This struck me as noise that got in the way of being able to actually discuss those problems.