Crackdowns in Gaydu

  

Merch at The Hunk, Chengdu, China’s gay capital

There’s a crackdown on the gay scene in China. Courtesy Xi Jinping (aka “Winnie”). He who deemed Beijing’s innovative building scene“abnormal architecture”. He of the suppression, repression and depression in the last ten years.  Now having a go at China’s gay scene — historical, lively, raunchy... till now. Because China — that is Beijing, that is, Winnie — fears organised civil groups, usually markers of any healthy society. 

As I read the article, I recalled a night at a Taipei bar, back around 1994, with a gay colleague. An Aussie, then representing Australian business interests in Taiwan. He’d just come over from some years in Shanghai. He told me that he felt more at home as a gay guy in Shanghai where homosexuality was nominally illegal, than he had back in Australia where it was nominally legal. He’s been “poofter bashed” in Oz; never had any problems in China. He noted the long history of gay tolerance in China’s art and literature. 

Not so much now. Thanks to Winnie: 

President Xi Jinping has overseen a drive against anything considered antithetical to Communist Party values – leaving little room for gay pride. Beijing also frowns on large civil society mobilisations of any kind.

Quotes from today’s article in the SCMP, “China’s gay capital Chengdu forced to adapt as government shuts down venues and probes NGOs”.

It’s Saturday night at the HUNK club in Chengdu and men in gold Lycra shorts and black boots dance on stage. They wear kimonos, in an apparent tactical compromise, with new morality codes creeping into China’s “gay capital”.

But across town, young women still lounge on leather sofas drinking beer at a lesbian club, while a nearby bar is hosting an LGBTQ board game night.

Far from the administrative glare of Beijing, the cosmopolitan southwestern city, dubbed “Gaydu” by Chinese millennials, has long cherished its reputation as a safe haven for a community that faces stigma and widespread harassment elsewhere in the country.

But activists now say the city’s permissive streak is under threat, as the central Communist leadership puts the squeeze on the few bastions of LGBT community across the country. Chengdu’s resilient LGBTQ community is not ready to be forced into the closet, however.…

…  The recipe for survival, Matthew says, is “making small progress” rather than big political and social statements that rattle China’s hypersensitive authorities. [PF: should have been the strategy of HK protesters…] …

… President Xi Jinping has overseen a drive against anything considered antithetical to Communist Party values – leaving little room for gay pride. Beijing also frowns on large civil society mobilisations of any kind. … 

… China’s rainbow community remains in the dark compared with many freer Asian countries. Gay bars refused on-the-record interviews and most interviewees declined to be identified.…

…”These past few years, mainstream ideology became more aggressive and the LGBT community has been more marginalised,” said Tang Yinghong, a professor who teaches sexual psychology.