I've got a friend from China over on Discord. He confided to us that he ended a friendship with someone today because they hated his transgender OC, and then proceeded to explain that it's a larger problem in China. Here's what he wrote:
To put it bluntly, almost the entire Internet environment in China is anti transgender.(Although China has protection laws for transgender individuals).
CN ppl who saw the news that transgender people died of abuse by their parents and then went on cheering are countless i would say
There are many people who use a small number of negative news to negate this group
I was scolded for a long time just saying 'But that's not the reason why they were brutally killed', and even some people called me a disgrace to the country
This is thanks to the media. About four years ago, the media began to put a large amount of negative news about LGBTQ community on the Chinese Internet
The current issue is that rulers do not want to interfere too much with the LGBTQ issues and have not publicly expressed their stance (However, it is explicitly stated in the law that transgender individuals should enjoy the same rights as other citizens).
However the voices of opposition from the public are very strong.
such strong sense of fragmentation
I would like to learn more about this issue, and, if it's as he's saying, try to understand better why things are this way in China and what, if anything, is being done about this over there.
I've heard a lot of similar things in my time browsing Chinese social media. I didn't see much of any LGBT presence when I visited there years ago, so everything I'm saying is white boy western speculation, but -
Identity-based cultural changes move much faster in liberalized countries with a strong focus on the individual. That's the only reason why transgender rights have progressed as fast as they have in the past two decades. I'm not making a value statement here on either liberalization or the rapid onset of transgender acceptance in the west. I just think the TQ+ side of the equation found easier footing in the west because they worship the individual (Not that I would describe the cultural change as 'easy' in general).
My general read of the situation based off what memes are deemed acceptable on Chinese social media is that LGB rights aren't as hotly contested as TQ+ rights, and the Chinese cultural climate is still in a period of change regarding this. There's no specific anti-discrimination laws based on sexuality, for example, but the rates of homosexuality in the population is observed as roughly the same in the west. This suggests people aren't repressing their sexuality any more than they already are in the west.
You also see almost no anti homosexual sentiment on social media, but anti transgender sentiment is very common (again, based on personal experience with their social media feeds. YMMV)
I think it's inevitable that China catches up in this regard, it will just take longer. The thing about minority groups is they'll usually end up organizing and advocating for themselves in political ways. For the time being, I wouldn't celebrate China as a cultural bastion for sexual minorities or anything.