Chinese LGBTQ deplores “dark day” after social media crackdown Censorship News

Chengdu, China – Without warning a week ago, WeChat, China’s popular social media platform, has definitively suspended the official accounts of more than a dozen LGBTQ university groups to spark a new round of discussion about the country’s already threatened community.

The disruption largely affected groups that were almost entirely run by students, including prestigious academic institutions at Tsinghua and Beijing universities. The group’s missions, according to the brief introductions, were “advocating for gender equality and sexual minority rights.”

Several students who run LGBTQ group accounts told Al Jazeera that they had not previously received any warning from the competent authorities that it was possible to suspend them.

Maryk, a student who was involved in one of the suspended groups, says while there were “talks” to regulate “groups defending the rights of sexual minorities” on campus a few months earlier, nothing had happened.

“It was a surprise, but not so much at the same time,” said Maria, who preferred not to use her real name for security reasons. “We knew that the LGBT rights movement in China was facing one after another, but we thought that at least being a member of the university could save us from overt repression.”

Like Maryk, everyone else who spoke at Al Jazeera did so on condition of anonymity because of her sensitivity to LGBTQ issues.

These accounts are now labeled “unofficial account”, with only one message appearing below – “all content has been censored because the account has violated the management rules of the Internet’s official account information management services”. All of the previously published articles on the platforms, mostly about gender issues and LGBTQ rights, have disappeared.

As in previous repressions in China, any effort to try to document the movement soon disappeared. Some accounts were suspended due to the completion of the list of deleted accounts.

Neither the government nor Tencent, the WeChat company, have provided an explanation for the disruption.

He told Al Jazeera that people in the groups who fled the crackdown were preparing for the worst.

An employee of a major LGBTQ group said he had started making copies of all the articles published on his platform, now more than 1,000. Another went to Taobao, China’s e-commerce platform, and paid someone to download all the articles, including health issues and political rights advocacy issues, in several accounts that could be the next goals of officials.

For now, the online presence of the groups alone is stifling, but many groups are concerned that authorities may be more open to LGBTQ groups to deal with campus events and activities. People like Mary say they work hard “to keep other activities moving forward as scheduled.”

“It’s a dark day for us, and I don’t know if I can turn to my friends and do anything other than comfort them,” a gay man from Chengdu, Kevin Jengera, told Al Jazeera after learning of the news.

Anti-community outcry erupted on Chinese social media.

Many appeared in favor of the groups, although they were more concerned about joining civil society.

“After years of working in this organization and being forced to question, censor and delete articles from colleagues, I will never forgive that [country]”, Said a person who worked in another group that was a victim of censorship.

Others expressed concern about the statewide censorship machine.

“What I fear most from this place is the ability to delete something with just my finger,” one user wrote on Douban, another Chinese social media platform. “Something about being a person, a group of people, an organization, or an ethnic group.”

Low pride

The Chinese government’s attitude toward the LGBTQ community changes frequently. From time to time, the government has equated homosexuality with violence and lewdness, censored television images, and allowed the book to refer to homosexuality as a mental illness. However, at the same time, the government’s attitude towards the community is not always an obvious enemy and Beijing as a whole has left the community alone.

Since 2009, Shanghai has been celebrating Pride Month, which is usually held in June in most countries, offering film screenings and public talks, although elsewhere it is the center of celebrations without a parade. Last year, organizers were forced to suspend the celebration due to COVID-19 restrictions.

But not everyone is committed to the community.

Online repression selected groups of students from universities such as the famous Beijing University [File: Roman Pilipey/EPA]

There are many who fully support government repression. Some people with large Weibon followers are quite happy, even if they are not happy with the latest development. “Glad that the government is finally taking action with LGBT organizations,” wrote Ziwuxiashi, a Weibo account with more than 500,000 followers. “Mine [the supporters of the community] is our victory song! “

China’s most conservative forces have shown strong hatred for their hatred of homosexuality or gender nonconformity in the face of an alleged “agenda of destruction of traditional values,” according to some anti-movement voices, including some who call Vaccine and Science writers. account with more than five million followers.

There is no legal recognition of same-sex relationships or marriage, but as people have become more socially liberal in recent years, enemies of the LGBTQ community have strayed from their “traditional values” argument.

The sample of offline and offline conversations makes it clear that there is a growing perspective: the LGBTQ community, especially on university campuses, is the basis of what is known as the “foreign enemy force” that can disrupt Chinese society. it must be carefully regulated.

“Targeting these groups is a good move because these students have learned bad things from foreign powers and are becoming their agents,” one user commented to Weibori.

‘Go to tactics’

In recent years, feminism and LGBTQ equality have spread to Western ideologies and being in China will destroy society, and as Beijing renews its idea of ​​giving domestic disagreement to the mix of foreign powers, they are amplifying their voices.

“Advocating for equality is a color revolution, accepting feminism is an infiltration of the Hong Kong independence movement, and being a pro-LGBT community is about receiving funding. [US President Joe] Biden, ”Wu, the organizer of a group to defend LGBTQ rights in Shanghai, told Al Jazeera, describing some of the allegations made.“ Labeling ordinary people with political brands, and then harassing them – that’s it [the government’s] go to tactics “.

Since Xi Jinping became president in 2012, political power has become even more centralized and the Communist Party has become increasingly sensitive to groups and organizations, from religion to culture and community, that can be threats to its control.

Despite the repression, people in the LGBTQ community maintain a sense of optimism. “Love and hope are not so easy to get rid of,” they said [File: How Hwee Young/EPA]

Reports on the Chinese LGBTIQ movement have been released this month by ILGA Asia, the regional arms of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association. strict censorship of authoritarian government “.

On social media, for example, instead of calling themselves “couples” or “boyfriends,” same-sex partners are described as “roommates,” deliberately preventing them from viewing “homosexuality”.

“This is [the government’s] an implicit tactic to introduce homosexuality into a heteronormative narrative, thereby depriving the LGBT group of its political voice, ”one WeChat user wrote.

What awaits the group to fight for civil liberties is certain in one of the most controlled countries in the world. The ILGA says that despite the “tough scenario,” there remain “opportunities,” especially in areas of violence and discrimination against the gay community and the defense of legal rights.

And within the largest LGBTQ community in the world, people maintain a sense of optimism.

“They can take away a lot of things from us, but love and hope – they’re not so easy to take away,” said a person who works for an LGBTQ-focused NGO in Wuhan.