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Opinion | China’s LGBT community doesn’t need Western ‘gay pride’

  • For LGBT people in China, sexuality is part, not all, of who they are as their familial role and national identity take precedence. What they want most is love and acceptance, not pride parades

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A Beijing-based choir comprising members of the LGBT community prepares backstage  before a concert during Shanghai’s Pride celebrations in June 2018. Photo: Simon Song
For years before my recent trip to Chengdu, friends from the mainland had told me that the Sichuan capital was also known colloquially as China’s “gay capital”.
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During my five days in the city, I saw plenty of hand-holding gay couples out in public, more than I would in Hong Kong. They could have easily gone unnoticed, given the lack of stares in a locality that was refreshingly unbothered.

Unlike Britain’s own unofficial “gay capital” of Brighton, Chengdu does not boast extravagant displays of rainbow-themed decorations or an overblown above-ground gay scene. The locals are quite aware that their gay bars and clubs attract people from across the country, and those of different sexual preferences live their lives quite harmoniously without those matters being dramatised.

It might be difficult for their Western counterparts to see how a city without those typical indicators can be considered a “gay capital”. But such a lack of cultural and contextual awareness must not lead to assumptions that China’s gay community is living in misery and suppression.

This is not to say that sexual minorities in the country haven’t faced curbs and setbacks of late. In 2021, WeChat moderators shut down multiple student-run LGBT accounts without explanation. And, just last month, a leading advocacy group in Beijing closed after 15 years of service, citing “unpreventable circumstances”. Moreover, not all places in China are as gay-friendly as Chengdu.
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Whenever the community suffers a blow, I see friends and acquaintances voice their concern and disappointment. However, what I have seen in real life has never matched the bleak portrayals in the mainstream Western media.
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