An sight to gay life Cha

Contents:

• GAY SHANGHAI
• GAY CHA
• SHANGHAI GAY TRAVEL
• THE WORLD'S WORST PLACE TO BE GAY? IT'S CHA, ACRDG TO NEW RANKG
• GAY CHENGDU
• HOW NATNALISM IS MAKG LIFE HARR FOR GAY PEOPLE CHA

GAY SHANGHAI

Gay clubs flourished big ci and muny groups sprang up to offer social servic.

While ’s difficult to pot to any direct crackdown, the realy is that over the past ’s bee toA gay stunt pos wh a rabow flag Beijg. While ’s difficult to pot to any direct crackdown, the realy is that over the past ’s bee tougher to be gay Cha. Homosexualy was crimalized 1997, but there are no explic legal protectns agast discrimatn based on sexual orientatn or genr inty.

A more assertive, self-reliant Cha has rulted  a subtle but nstant narrowg of gay spacPhotographer: GREG BAKER/AFPHello,I’m Colum Murphy, a reporter on our Cha ernment team based Beijg, wh a look at the steady erosn of gay life Cha.

GAY CHA

First, here are your headl: This week’s top stori:Up NextBeg Gay Cha Has Gotten Harr Unr Xi Jpg. Durg this year’s Pri Month, soccer star Li Yg ma history as Cha’s first female athlete to e out publicly as gay, a ndid seri of celebratory photos posted on social media, showg her posg happily alongsi her partner.

And while much of the reactn was posive, wh people sendg their ngratulatns, Li’s acunt was also undated wh a wave of homophobic abe.

In years past, June was filled wh LGBTQ (lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr and queer) events major ci such as Shanghai and Beijg, durg which Cha’s sexual mori uld semi-openly celebrate their inty. Cha crimalized homosexualy 1997 and removed om s official list of mental disorrs 2001.

SHANGHAI GAY TRAVEL

Some LGBTQ people have blamed the crackdown on the rrect imprsn that homosexualy is a Wtern import to Cha, and groups supportg gay rights are liable to filtratn by foreign forc. Some also spect a more direct lk between the crackdown on LGBTQ rights and top officials’ worldviews, which for many were shaped durg the Cultural Revolutn the 1960s and ’70s, when thori attempted to purge any “non-socialist” elements — cludg homosexualy — om Che society.

I’ll take you to see the place where the gays go to play mahjong.

THE WORLD'S WORST PLACE TO BE GAY? IT'S CHA, ACRDG TO NEW RANKG

I’m here to take a tour of s gay scene and 29-year-old Ah Tao is my gui. There has been some excellent rearch to the emergence of gay and lbian inti Cha, cludg how the have been shaped by ro-Amerin ias of “gay sensibily” and characterised by “dividualy, difference, sophistitn, liberatn and morny”. One 2018 study tailed gay bars Shanghai that rivalled those of any wtern pal, the anisatn of “pri” events and the tense ntexts which “queer” film ftivals and wir cultural productn and activism occur the face of ntued regulatn by the thorarian state.

Back 2009-10, I spent 12 months studyg Mandar Che Haan and ma iends lol gay muni. Inspired by those experienc, for the past eight years, I have been rryg out rearch wh gay men the regn and, 2018, pleted a PhD this explorg gay liv Haan. I wanted to fd out how gay liv are lived on the margs of global LGBT polics and activism, away om ci imaged as smopolan centr of morny.

GAY CHENGDU

My rearch explor how gay men Haan unrstand themselv, build muni and negotiate the prsur to nform to the heterosexual life script of marriage and reproductn. I looked to how gay liv are figured out everyday teractns, how they are shaped by the spac which they unfold and how this plays out over time. “When we get there, don’t say any gay stuff, ” Ah Tao warns me as we approach a shop the cut-out rner of a buildg at an tersectn wh an even narrower alley.

When I first beme volved gay muni Haan back 2009, I was taken by iends to the sole gay bar Haikou, the provcial pal.

I later learned that the petg dynamics of centraly and obscury are characteristic of gay spac Haan.

HOW NATNALISM IS MAKG LIFE HARR FOR GAY PEOPLE CHA

This abandoned hotel Sanya was the former lotn of a gay bar. In the island’s biggt ci, Haikou and Sanya, there are gay bars and tablished cisg areas certa parks, centrally loted yet variably beyond the view of the wir public.

Haikou’s current gay bar is accsed by climbg through a wdow on the fifth floor of an ageg tower block, out onto a balny, past a long dried-up swimmg pool and down a stg stairse. In Sanya, the well trodn pathways that criss-cross a bamboo grove where the edge of a park meets a riverbank are a by gay meetg spot, while the cy’s gay bar, durg the time of my fieldwork, was aga loted a dised hotel. To anyone not faiar wh gay works the ci, the plac are visible and often impossible to fd.