Without some level of acquiescence from the Chinese government, China’s LGBTQ’s online presence couldn’t have reached today’s scale.įor example, in April, the word “feminism” suddenly became taboo on Weibo, accompanied with a merciless keyword blockage that allowed no leeway for any related information. Online activism has on some level forced the Chinese government to become more transparent, and though ironclad bans are still are in place on content mentioning Tiananmen incident or Falun Gong, the internet censors seem to be loosening their grips on a lot of issues from government malfeasances and press freedoms to subcultural marginalized populations such as LGBTQ community.
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Though the Chinese government still forbids representations of homosexuality on TV and has censored documentaries about being gay, they appear to be more leniant when it comes to digital content. China may have barricaded itself with the Great Fire Wall and imposed brutal censors on its internet, but its netizens are more informed and liberated than at any other point in history. Equipped with more resources and clout than ever, the company continues to expand its popular platforms and public health initiatives.
As the CEO of Light Blue and Blued, Geng has received praises from international organizations such as the UN and the World Health Organization-and even China’s own prime minster KeQiang Li, in 2012. Today Light Blue has over 5 million registered users and is a pillar of China’s LGBTQ community-they’ve even created partnerships with local and national health departments in HIV-prevention programs. Light Blue was one of the websites that was regularly forced into a black out.
Around the same time, the Chinese government started to exert tighter control over the internet and began cracking down on websites with “immoral” content. The website launched in 2000 and had news, chat sections, and published LGBTQ-related films and novels.īy 2006, Light Blue users numbered in the hundreds of thousands, and a team of like-minded people joined Geng on his mission to provide for China’s LGBTQ community. Occupied by both of his jobs, he worked 17 hours almost everyday for six years. So Geng bought a coding book, The Oriental King of Web-making, and spent around RMB $10,000 (USD$2,000 dollars) on then-cutting-edge Intel 486 to start crafting Light Blue.
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At the time, he was working at his local police station, and he didn’t have a clue about how to make a website. Geng felt compelled to make that voice easier to find for others. For the longest time he thought he was alone, an abnormity, but now “I realized that there were people just like me,” he says. Founder Geng Le realized that he liked men around 2000, back when homosexuality was still defined as a mental disease (link in English) in China. Seeking more information to extend his understanding of his newfound sexuality, Geng found a book titled Beijing Story-a love story with genuine, undemonized gay characters-in the most cryptic rims of the internet. One of the earliest and most popular websites for the gay community was-and still is- Light Blue, the predecessor of the popular app Blued.
Think pieces, LGBTQ movies, erotic films and images, and even catty commentaries of niche gay culture can all be found in the rapid currents of China’s internet. Popular gay-dating app Blued has also reached an astronomical scale of more than 22 millions users, usurping Grindr to become the most-used dating app for gays worldwide. Internet socialites who are open about their sexuality have gained popularity and have capitalized on their fame by starting their own lines of clothing. Popular Weibo (China’s version of Twitter) accounts about gay people, such as “ My affairs with my gay partner,” have amassed millions of followers.
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In spite of China’s digital censorship laws, the extent to which LGBTQ-related topics can be talked about online is virtually limitless (all links in Chinese unless otherwise noted). As long as this community doesn’t disrupt the government’s status quo offline through public protests and disruptive gatherings, they are rarely interfered with or discouraged by Chinese officials in fact, they’re flourishing.