‘Real-world consequences’: Safe spaces shrink for China’s LGBTQ community

Two and a half weeks after the 20th Party Congress, in which Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 was confirmed for a historic third term, queer and transgender Chinese people are wondering if any hope remains for a future that is inclusive of their rights.

M, a young Chinese currently living in Europe, was blunt about his outlook. “I’m not going back to China,” he said. As a gay man, he doesn’t believe any progress is possible under the current government.

A different LGBTQ activist living outside China described her feelings on October 23, when Xi was confirmed for his third term. “I felt a very deep hopelessness inside me,” she said. “What can I do? What can we do? Any opposition voice challenging his term will surely not be discussed. All the opposition voices are from the voiceless, and the position of the voiceless is nonexistent inside the political circle in China…I don’t see any chance for the prosperity [of LGBTQ people] in Xi’s third term.”

China’s LGBTQ community has already experienced increased discrimination during the last decade. According to the non-governmental organization OutRight International, LGBTQ people in China are “second-class citizens in the eyes of the law and lack critical protections of their rights.” They have no legal protections against discrimination, but have recently also seen increased censorship of LGBTQ content, creating a feeling among many LGBTQ Chinese people that they cannot safely come out.

In July 2021, more than a dozen WeChat accounts of LGBTQ student groups at Chinese universities were deleted. In November of that same year, LGBTQ Rights Advocacy China, one of China’s most influential advocacy groups, ceased all activities. This year, students at a top Chinese university were punished for handing out rainbow flags, this in stark contrast to seven years ago, when state media provided sympathetic coverage to Guangdong students unfurling a giant rainbow flag on campus.

Darius Longarino, an expert on LGBTQ rights in China, suggests that Xi’s increased crackdown on LGBTQ NGOs and other public spaces for queer people will have a significant impact on private lives.

“State media, especially those that write in English, often posit that the only time LGBT people run into problems is when they do activism, and if they are LGBT in private, there are no problems,” Longarino tells the China Project. “I don’t think that was ever true, but we’re about to test that hypothesis.”

Longarino mentioned the recent suicide of Shandong University student Gāo Yàn 高彦 as an example of how China’s shuttering of safe spaces for LGBTQ people has “real-world consequences for people who aren’t activists.”

After facing bullying due to his sexuality, the 19-year-old Gao drank a cocktail of alcohol, pills, and insecticide. In a China Project interview, Jonathan Ma (pseudonym), the founder of a nonprofit serving LGBTQ individuals in China, linked Gao’s death with the crackdown on LGBTQ student groups. He believes that with no peer-support groups or LGBTQ professionals to turn to when facing discrimination, Gao felt trapped and hopeless.

It is perhaps due to the shrinking possibility of LGBTQ public life that “S,” a Chinese professor of Women and Gender Studies currently working in Canada, recommends LGBTQ activists “get their feet in the community…and learn creative strategies for survival.” She told the China Project that if activists don’t adapt, “cultural shifts will not happen, especially under the current political climate and global stagflation.”

Only time will tell how Xi’s third term will further impact the lives of Chinese LGBTQ people. While most of those who spoke with the China Project are hoping for the best, they are all expecting the worst.