What the article says is, of course, horrible. But even if you believe it, it is parents who put their kids in conversion camps. The only part where the govt. comes in is with the assertion that some people heading these "schools" are members of the CCP (which has over 90 million members so c'mon). There are two other articles in this series but they are paywalled so can't talk about them.
Here is a good article covering LGBTQ+ news in China (positives and negatives).
Here is some direct rebuttal by someone more educated.
All this kind of coverage in Western news does is make certain conservative voices within the Global South associate lgbt rights as "western" and hurt marginalized people within.
I fucking guarantee you that if the CPC illegalized them, Forbes/WSJ/The Economist would pop up within nanoseconds with headlines that are variations of, "China has abolished the troubled teens industry, but at what cost?"
Or we would fucking go to war against "Asiatic-origin wokeness".
Be warned, the really fucked up ones use Stockholm Syndrome motivated senior students as guards/meat shields. In the case of those camps becoming illegal, a military raid would end up killing a bunch of the kids they're trying to rescue.
Lately, every time I use my airfryer I wonder if it could be used as a giant vape.
I mean, surely if the Anglosphere is condemning other countries for having these camps, they go out of their way to dismantle them, right?
They've been banned in Canada, not sure about the rest of the anglosphere. I assume not.
Its bullshit. They just name it something else. I know someone that was in a camp in Canada recently that was conversion therapy related. They just say 'nooo of course not, we're just wholesome Christians doing wholesome torture'.
parents who put their kids in conversion camps
:yea: makes sense that it would happen there too, assigning it to "China" and not "Some Chinese Parents" is a standard sinophobic construction that you see in western media that paints the country as a monolith.
These conditions are the same as in the USA and other countries. Trans people have roughly the same conditions around the entire globe based on my conversations with international trans women (including Chinese, Cuban, Iranian, and many, many Russian women). Anyone saying this is unique to China are scum and are imperialist apologizers hoping to 'intervene'. LGBT people are first on the chopping block whenever there is an intervention. The only way for this to be resolved is if the local LGBT+allies community does something about it. Otherwise, we should always be open to refugees. That is all we can do.
I'd also like to point out that these sorts of things flourish just because of ignorance. There are many communists in places like China, Czechia, Vietnam, Cuba, and so on, that if you properly educate them on LGBT issues, they become stalwart allies in quick fashion. They legitimately have never been exposed to the idea of LGBT people beyond the surface level. My grandma, for instance, was a commie organizer a long time ago and since I have come out to her she did a complete 180 on LGBT issues and has even pushed all of her connections to be accepting as well. It required almost no pushing from me for her to do so, she educated herself and asked for book recommendations even.
But you also have to realize too that there are many reactionary groups that take advantage of this ignorance to stifle the LGBT community. And there are international liberal groups that seek to turn LGBT people into compradors and spies because of their precarious condition. It is very convenient for these liberal groups, LGBT people are everywhere and since we generally have it bad in every country, they can point to the miniscule amount of progress in the West to show these people 'hope' through intervention. It is very sinister, and it is an issue that comes up a lot in my discussions with LGBT people abroad. Some LGBT groups in countries like China even have rules about not speaking to foreigners for this fear that it could cause trouble. So this sort of rhetoric just ends up making the situation even more precarious and it makes it harder for people to find legitimate, altruistic help.
I’d also like to point out that these sorts of things flourish just because of ignorance. There are many communists in places like China, Czechia, Vietnam, Cuba, and so on, that if you properly educate them on LGBT issues, they become stalwart allies in quick fashion. They legitimately have never been exposed to the idea of LGBT people beyond the surface level. My grandma, for instance, was a commie organizer a long time ago and since I have come out to her she did a complete 180 on LGBT issues and has even pushed all of her connections to be accepting as well. It required almost no pushing from me for her to do so, she educated herself and asked for book recommendations even.
This is wild to me. Don't get me wrong, I believe you 100%, but it's strange to imagine actually experiencing this because all of the anti-LGBT people I've encountered have been aggressively hostile toward and immediately dismissive of any evidence against their positions.
It helps that they're already on the anti-racism and workers rights train. My parents still haven't come around because they have liberal brainworms, though my grandma has used her power as matriarch to bully them into being nicer. Shes pretty well known in our village back in Czechia, everyone knows her, so she kinda made it her business to begin to convince people. Theres also just the fact that it isn't America. The default for LGBT people is obscurity, only in America and Western Europe is there a big political debate about it, though that is spreading to Eastern Europe too as time goes on.
It definitely puts new light on the claim stupidpol types love to make about how "all of the working class people outside of the west hate gay people, so the LGBT movement is bourgeois and imperialist."
It's nonsense. Most people don't even know being gay or trans is a thing outside the west. It's a curse and a blessing.
Shit, the idea wasnt even particularly well known in the west until the 80s and 90s. Like I didn't even know being gay or trans was an option until I was like 14.
It makes sense, because in many places in the West, anti-LGBT rhetoric is like a huge and longstanding cultural project. A significant number of Christians believe that if they treat enough gay people with respect, God will get fed up at some point and genocide the entire society. If I was an American evangelical Christian, I would believe that one gay person walking around minding their own business is a greater threat of human misery than infinite Holocausts.
In some other places it might be a lot shallower, like just a vague belief in traditional gender roles and a deference to the word of their geriatric asshole relatives.
This is generally the pattern everywhere. It's also why communists with their urbanization campaigns are natural allies of the LGBT community on a macro scale even if they're ignorant
And seriously, I've even been to creepy fucking camps like this in the USA that were disguised as other things, but luckily they weren't as bad because I was relatively good at masking. And there are tons of stories from the troubled teen industry too.
Pretty much, but they also just aren't looking at it that way. Cuba realized it at least and took the smart option. In Russia the fash realize it and see it as an excuse to terrorize
I mean, yeah, why is that surprising? It has some of the best laws on the books but that's still a recent development
It wasn't that long ago that Fidel admitted he was wrong on LGBT issues, but he's another case to my point
Patriarchal Catholicism is tough to overcome. They’re trying, which is more than nearly anywhere else
When your whole population is religious, it’s not that easy. Sorry.
“If I were a Latin American socialist leader I would simply be a militant atheist and eliminate Christianity” no dog there’s a reason LibTheo was born in LA
as a trans woman who lives in florida i am offering free skull rearrangements to anyone who tries to bring up china's "shocking and awful uwu!" treatment of any minority
Personally I get all my news about my official enemies from Bugger.co.uk(I have not vetted if this is a real link)
Jokes aside though.
Nathan Ruser from ASPI tells Crikey the Shandong Zhengxin Education Training School, and other facilities, are “highly securitised campuses that have features similar to internment and re-education facilities in Xinjiang”.
This sounds way too much like the same mad libs style recycling of smears that happened when going from Falun Gong to Uighur Muslims, where "Falun Dafa purified organs" became the "halal organs" smear. I find it impossible to take very seriously, even in the absence of direct debunks.
I'm just fucking pissed that this is another thing I know I'll have to argue about with people.
ASPI
every fucking time :aus-delenda-est: is in the news these fuckers are setting the narrative. They literally have 1 Lockheed funded think-tank directing an entire country's foreign policy :joker-shopping:
Failing to convince the world that they care about Muslims, the Western world pivots to trying to convince the world that they care about LGBT people.
I’m glad ASPI has adapted their messaging for the 2020s, the site even handily tagged it with “China’s Queer Purge”
“China’s Queer Purge”
JoJo's Bizzare Adventure's worst spinoff.
Ok, Maybe Ireland and Scandinavian countries can point fingers, but I swear to God, if this comes from any :anglo-burn: countries...
Its kinda just barely getting better over here, Sweden has just made it to the 10 year anniversary of not sterilizing trans people anymore, and I'm pretty sure Norway still forces you to present in public for like a year before they let you get HRT.
Sweden's also experiencing the culture war right now so things could be getting worse again.
bruh i swear half our states still haven't banned conversion therapy, so having le independent news website push another ASPI angle is such dogshit lmao
The Chinese government is totally at fault here for allowing these shitholes to operate. And if cpc members are involved then it's even worse.
It's not some goofy ass scheme by Xi himself but is still a human right violation happening under the Chinese government.
I'm normally willing to give them some leeway, but this is egregious. What is to be gained by allowing this whatsoever? It's not like cracking down on this bullshit is going to deter Western investment.
The UK has only just passed a law banning conversion torture, a law that was almost put through Parliament with an exception for trans people.
This shit is horrifying whatever country does it. The West™ really doesn't get to act smugly superior when this is still going on in many "western" countries.
:debatebro-l: whataboutism, china bad, us loves freedom :debatebro-r:
Agreed 100%. Transphobia & homophobes in every country can kindly face the wall.
