Plenty of soul searching has been prompted in Beijing after the release of a survey called "100 best LGBT cities in the world,” conducted by German-based housing rental website Nestpick, which ranked the Chinese capital dead last.
Heated debates ensued on many forums and outlets, including the comments section of a Beijinger article about the ranking, with commenters posting gripes like “I bet it's far worse to be LGBT in Riyadh, Tehran and the entire Middle East” and another who wrote, “Just visit Destination in Beijing. Being gay is as Chinese as foreign.” Some of those readers might have merely glanced at the piece’s headline, “Beijing is Worst-Ranked on a List of Gay-Friendly Cities” and not read carefully enough to realize that the capital is still among the world’s most LGBT livable locales, albeit at the tail end of that list.
Nevertheless, that ranking might have come as a surprise for some, given innovative initiatives like last year’s All Gender Toilet Program by the Beijing Gender Health Education Institute (BGHEI). It provided safe space washrooms at some of the capital’s most progressive venues in trendy neighborhoods like Sanlitun and Gulou. The effort made Beijing look downright progressive at the time, at least in the capital's more cosmopolitan neighborhoods, especially compared to the concurrent anti-transgender bathroom bill in North Carolina.
Martin Yang, sustainable development project manager at BGHEI, says another recent positive on Beijing’s LGBT front is the funding breakdown of this year's AIDS walk, with 60 percent of that money being raised and contributed by local Chinese. “In the past, expats were the biggest donors. So I feel very hopeful that Chinese people living in Beijing are gradually becoming more accepting,” Yang says of the increased support among locals for an epidemic that, while obviously posing a danger to heterosexual citizens, has devastated the gay community all the more. Yang adds that he was also impressed by a recent segment about China’s LGBT rainbow economy on none other than the state-run CGTN English news network.
And yet those promising points are, in Yang’s view, marred by even more recent, albeit nationwide, developments (it's good to keep in mind that, while the Nestpick survey listed Beijing last, other Chinese cities like Shanghai and Hong Kong didn’t fare much better, ranking 89 and 83, respectively). Yang says he is particularly troubled by news from earlier this month of the state banning homosexuality from internet videos as part of a “crackdown on 'vulgar' and 'unpatriotic' content” (you can read more about that at The Shanghaiist).
That dramatic online policy shift was equally bitter, though sadly all too familiar, for Fan Popo, the director of LGBT themed documentary Mama Rainbow which was also officially banned in 2015. However, he chalks much of that crackdown up to ongoing, subtler censorship in the media, explaining: “We don’t usually have public figures that come out in show business, and none of our politicians are out. We grew up with no real role models, which is a challenge for all queer people in China.”
Similarly broad issues are cited by Chao Xiao Mi, the owner of a hutong fashion boutique whose issues with harassment in Beijing’s public washrooms, as a transgender person, prompted BGHEI to begin the All Gender Toilet project. Chao says the “great firewall” that blocks websites with sensitive content on the Mainland, along with general limitations on NGO’s, are especially trying for the LGBT community. After all, they rely on such outside information and the support of such organizations (respectively) so much more than mainstream Chinese society. “These are terrible rules that put pressure on LGBT people again and again,” she says.
And while Ying Xin, director of the Beijing LGBT Center, is galled by those numerous limits and more, it’s the restrictions on information and media visibility that galvanize her most of all these days. “It is impossible for us to be invisible and silent and still fight for our rights,” she says of how those issues not only presently inhibit LGBT people, but also greatly impede their future. She goes on to explain that much of her center’s reach is at risk of plateauing: ”Now most of our volunteers are students. We need forces from different areas, of different ages. We need more people to join us,” she says, adding that such breakthroughs remain elusive in such a restrictive media climate.
Nevertheless, Ying is heartened by the growth her center has been able to attain, explaining: “One third of our volunteers are heterosexual,” which leads her to believe that “many young people in Beijing are really friendly to the LGBT community.”
“Now what we need is more people to speak out on social media, and in daily life, to affect other people,” Ying adds.
Yang, of the Beijing Gender Health Education Institute, agrees. When it comes to Beijing specifically, he feels pride parades and pride month campaigns in the media that were allowed to be highly visible would all lead to some of the breakthroughs that Ying is referring to.
“Can we help the city to become more welcome and open?” he asks. “And can we help LGBT people accept themselves, so that if you want to watch a gay film or read a gay book to learn more, you can? Can we not let Beijing’s LGBT people dare to dream?”
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Email: kylemullin@truerun.com
Twitter: @MulKyle
Photos: Sixth Tone, Courtesy of BGHEI, the Beijinger, CNN/Courtesy of Chao Xiao Mi