I have been lurking on Chinese social media because I’m sort of a native Chinese speaker. In China’s leftist scene, a lot of the “patriot”, anti-imperialist, pro-CPC folks are extremely anti-feminist, anti-LGBT, racist, xenophobic, anti-semitic, and islamophobic.
Of course CPC itself doesn’t slightly take those stances. However I’m worried if it grows out of control it might be a problem in the future, as some of those leftist influencers have millions of social media followers.
I mean, my impression is that, in regards to LGBT people, most Chinese folks see it from a “don’t ask, don’t tell” point of view. It’s not surprising that there is social apprehension/ignorance towards LGBT issues given some of the attempts made by Western libs to apparently put forward progressive issues on Chinese social media with the true intention of creating social friction, as user roccopun described in this thread.
In any case, it doesn’t seem systemic (correct me if I’m wrong) to me (same as the racism problem, which I have seen a lot of as well), so I don’t think it’s that big of a deal, just something that will become less evident as time goes on and China develops.
I do have to call into question someone here who stated that LGBT rights in the West are better than in China. By what metric? Perhaps LGBT people enjoy greater social acceptance in general in West, but what is the standard of living of the average LGBT person, especially a transgender person, like? If more and more people have easy access to free education and healthcare, are guaranteed work, and are able to afford housing, and social and material inequality lessens, then the people will have less and less of a reason to scapegoat LGBT folks as conduits of liberalism as a result. Though not founded in reality, such concerns are merely a byproduct of the ever-present threat imperialism and capitalism poses on all socialist states; it is unfortunate, but not surprising to see.
ive discussed this at length with other trans people i know in china. we concluded that the conditions of trans people in china and america are nearly identical, with slight favor to china simply because no one knows what being transgender is (which has its own issues too). whereas in usa its a hot button issue
Is the Beijing LGBT Center considered reliable for stats? (Not that their website is working right now)
I recall seeing that they report widespread depression, suicidal thoughts, and difficulty in public spaces for transpeople. So I assumed that meant conditions for lgbt people haven’t really improved that much, combined with the state not having any real preventative measures against discrimination (though I’ve seen a few regional court cases where they rule in favor of an lgbt person, it’s not exactly comprehensive). Gay marriage still isn’t legal. Though if you’re using the USA as a metric, the baseline for what’s considered ‘an improvement’ can vary wildly between comparisons to NYC or to Alabama.
General material conditions being better in China though? Yeah, I recognize that. My main thought process here is whether it’s cool with most bosses to show up to work and get a paycheck while being openly trans, because that’s where I’ve had the most issues.
extreme necropost but yeah the stats for the beijing lgbt center are generally reliable and the statistics released by them are roughly on par with statistics in the USA, though is some metrics China does slightly better. obviously it depends on regions and so on as well