What you say matches the experience my white gay friend who moved to Beijing with his husband had. He said his experiences have been better than living in small town American south.
On the flip side, gay culture in the US is a ghoulish pink capitalist mess. At least in China that wouldn't be a factor. One thing I've noticed working on LGBT issues in the Global South is that much of the movement is geared towards copying the US and Europe, and not necessarily building something better.
The overt promiscuity and celebration of drug culture leave a bad taste in my mouth, but I've found my niche.
I'm reminded of the Chase Bank Pride floats.
I don't think there's anything too wrong with promiscuity or drug culture per se, but they definitely make it easier to draw attention away from issues like sexual violence.
No, there's nothing wrong with them, in fact I love drugs mysellf, I just mean glamorizing it, and promiscuity in that a lot of men feel like it's totally okay to grab other men. I'm more of a private person.
Side note: Getting into drugs in China is likely to get you into way more trouble than being gay in China.
: p Sexual assault is sexual assault. I've run in to some grabby dudes at gay bars. Back when I was twenty I thought it was flattering. Now I'm just like Nope nope nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooope.
Totally, the anxiety around being groped or assaulted is why I don't go to gay bars or drag shows.
for those who don't know, Taiwan is probably the most progressive place in Asia in regards to LGBTQ issues. for example, they legalized same-sex marriage in 2019, and they have a very high profile "Digital Minister" named Audrey Tang who is openly transgender/non-binary. so for your friends the difference is probably especially notable coming from TW.
Naomi Wu occasionally talks about it.
My sense is that it’s allowed to exist without any significant reactionary counter movement, but the pace of progress is glacial.
It’s also easier if you don’t have family there. There’s no one to be disappointed in you.
Poorly. I've spent a decent amount of time in China and live in South Korea at the moment and China is not doing great with that. It'll be worse than a lot of places in the US.
skorea has taken the bold approach of dealing with their distaste for gay people by just pretending they don't exist, but in general it's getting better, still really bad. Your best bet is gonna be subcultures in busan or seoul, anywhere else, like especially daegu, you're in for a bad time.
the homophobias of china and skorea are different tho, china has a vastly more hypermasculine form of homophobia whereas skorea is more of a "eww icky!" kind, take from that what you will. I think it has a lot to do with the sort of religious colonialism inherent to skorea (tons of churches everywhere), but a lot of the shamanists and whatnot are also just as homophobic. Pretty fucked generally. Anyway that's all different to china which has a sort of nationalistic machismo about it
EDIT: just recently there was a rona outbreak in seoul, specifically in itaewon, a foreigner/party district. Since theres a lot of foreigners its a good spot for gay clubs too, and a korean who had it went to one of such clubs and unfortunately spread it around. This lead to lots of antiforeigner (even tho he was korean) and anti-gay sentiment. Shit like that is pretty indicative.
Honestly, they're coming around, but they're still in the dark ages. Homosexuality is still considered a disruption to family ties and social harmony. People here hate HK, but that's probably one of the best imports they've taken after from Westerners. Macau too. Or really any big city, there's whisper networks.
And use VPNs to watch gay porn, but it may not be worth the risk. They are NOT kind to it.
"The dark ages" seems a little harsh from what I've read. I'd say they're maybe 25-30 years behind the U.S. in terms of LGBT rights but trending in the right direction.
dude 25-30 years ago gay people were being dragged behind trucks in the us. that is not good.
that's good i guess. this shit should be discussed more. chinas cool for opposing capitalism, but i see a lot of people stanning them hard here, which basically requires them to ignore a lot of the information coming in this thread, which seems kinda fucked up.
dude 25-30 years ago gay people were being dragged behind trucks in the us
In some parts of the country. In other parts of the country same sex marriage was getting legalized. That mix of progress and repression looks like what I've read about China.
that is not good.
It's not. But they're also not in such a bad place that further progress seems impossible.
yeah, and china is fucking huge. and there's a couple people in this thread saying there's some really good parts that are open and they've got friends who are gay and trans who are doing fine, and it's dumb to judge a nation by it's worst parts. but it's still pretty disappointing.
That mix of progress and repression looks like what I’ve read about China.
Are there similar hate crimes in China?
Why haven't they embraced it as an extension of the one-child policy? Tangentially, how many children does the average closeted gay person in a hetero relationship have?
Think the Ellen Page in Japan "documentary"/episode of her show on VICE TV, but worse. Asia as in the continent is pretty horrible for gay rights.
That doesn't mean you can't live there successfully, but being "open" is like being open in the American South (more Alabama, I guess over some other areas like Atlanta): It's something you go into the "closet" for.
Sorry not trying to be rude, but are you saying that Healthcare in Shanghai is cheaper than in America or the other way around?
I found this which seems ok: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_culture_in_Shanghai
The downvotes this benign post has received should tell you everything about the hostility you'll receive in the mainland ;-)
lol no need to be obtuse. Anyone reading the responses in this post will come away with a little bit of "China bad?"
It says 16 downvotes, and no other posts on the front page have more than 1 or 2. There's some clear brigading and vote manipulation going on, like there is in every "China bad" post, because tankies gonna tank, that love for authoritarianism and contempt for independent thought
This post does not adhere to our PR standards. Please rephrase the question without mention of "gay, porn, drag shows, queer, and tolerated" or we will reduce your social credit score. B-b-b-boop.
/s
Hahahahaha bro that’s epic, Xi Jinping owned? Socialism with Chinese Characteristics dissolved and Hong Kong returned to its colonial masters.
I am completely uninformed about this topic but I follow Naomi Wu on twitter (lesbian high profile Chinese tech Youtuber in Shenzhen) and saw this the other day which I think you might find interesting:
https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/1203504201789100032
Yeah, don't dude. US is a fucking nightmare but China is on another level when it comes to state persecution of LGBT.
I think conversion centres being mainstream/occasionally mandatory and a country wide ban on depicting homosexual relationships in media and is a pretty big indication of their feelings towards the matter. Sources . Maybe the state would be different to western LGBT foreigners however- especially in capitals as noted above.
Maybe I went overboard, true. But choosing China out of every country to travel to when LGBT? :/ Also, I hope this sub understands criticism of China ≠ endorsement of American imperialism.
Do we need to have another struggle session on why western NGOs are not valid sources for anything?
Yoy shouldn't uncritically trust any source of media. Everyone in that business has an agenda and just about everyone is willing to lie or mislead to advance it.
That, however, doesn't mean that certain sources like Western Liberal NGOs aren't especially untrustworthy due to their history of lying to advance the interests of western hegemony.
