one thing most any leftist will say about china despite supporting the country is that they’re a very traditionalist culture, and so LGBTQ issues in particular are a blight on leftist westerner’s otherwise positive view of china.
upon scrolling thru rednote, i think that’s bullshit now. i really don’t think you’re worse off being LGBTQ in china than you are in america. yeah, you can’t get married, but that right is under constant threat of being taken away in the US anyway and let’s be real- it probably will be taken away. meanwhile, china is making progress on that front, the US wants to regress.
i saw multiple LGBTQ people on rednote. i saw a lesbian couple, one of the girls even said “LGBT is completely normal in china now, especially in the cities. even the older generations who might not accept it mind their own business”. can that be said about america? how many queer people here have been accosted by some boomer who couldn’t mind their own business? i saw the gayest fucking dude i’ve ever seen in my life (that’s a compliment). he was also wearing makeup and sassily singing along with destiny’s child. completely comfortable in his skin and with his identity, and while all of the comments and his speaking were in mandarin that i couldn’t understand, you can tell by the vibe it was all positive. meanwhile in progressive america, if you’re a guy who wants to put on makeup and go live on tiktok you’re gonna face all sorts of homophobia and bigotry.
one of the few things western liberals could really say about china, that even those of us who are left wing and pro china thought to be at least somewhat true, appears to just straight up not be true.
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.