For example, 74.9 % of sexual and gender minorities have not come out in the workplace, and 50% have not come out at home and school. This finding did not surprise me, but it was heart-broken to read because it echoed what I saw and experienced in my daily life. This report is the very first large-scale public survey on the LGBTQ topic in Mainland China. This is the conclusion in Being LGBTI in China: A National Survey on Social Attitudes towards SOGIE (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity/Expression). At the same time, sexual and gender minority content scarcely appears in the mainstream media, such as in newspapers, magazines, or on the radio, the television, and in movies, which still lack not only positive but any portrayals of diversity." Even at home and in the family, those who manage to be completely "out" are in the very minority. While they live across China and work in all types of occupations, only an extremely small number of them openly disclose their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression in public spaces such as at school, at work or as they participate in religious activities. "Sexual and gender minority people, still have very low visibility within society. But there are no laws that protect queer from discrimination and they can not get same-sex married. in 1997, Decriminalize homosexuality by repealing the hooliganism laws, and in 2001 the Chinese ministry of Health removed the LGB from its list of mental disorder. As the globalizing happening and the movement going, China achieved a couple of breakthroughs. While those issues are existing, the LGBTQ movement in China started around 1970s-1980s. Due to that, similar to being queer in the rest of the world, LGBTQ people are facing discrimination, less educated, lower job stability and a higher unemployment rate, and lots of them under depression. Among the only three data point I could find, only 30 percent of people who think being LGBTQ is a "normal' thing. There are not a lot of data around the public attitudes toward the LGBTQ community either.
In China, there is no accurate number of China's LGBTQ population, but the common estimate is that they represent 5% of the population. My current MFA thesis, " Queer China," explores the bias, challenges, and relationships within the LGBTQ community under the unique cultures and policies of China. Lastly, the participants pointed out which they would like to see or make changes among all the connections I asked them to draw a line between the stakeholders that had a connection with one another. The second part is about connections inside this system. For instance, I felt like I could barely change the social norm right now, I would draw a bigger arrow to "you," a small one toward "social norm."Īfter that, using the board they had created as a prop, they compared their choices in a group, discuss why they made those decisions, and started a dialogue. Then among the stakeholders that they believed had an impact on them, I asked them to consider whether they could also make an impact on those stakeholders. The first question I asked was, among all the stakeholders, which had the biggest impact on you, choosing between "a large impact", "a small impact" or "never thought about it". And it worked, people started smiling and laughing while they introduced their characters to each other.Īfter people got relaxed, they got to create and explore the Queer World on a game board.
Besides the idea of gamification, these characters they created could be used as tools to make it easier and more fun for participants to get to know each other, such as their names, hometowns, preferred pronouns, occupations, and personalities. Then as an ice-breaker, the participants were instructed to create their own characters by cutting images from magazines and team up to introduce themselves. On the other hand, I want to create a safe, fun, easy and relaxed atmosphere to make the participants feel they are heard. So it is important to remind the participants to have an open mind and be respectful to each other because that is what we, all queer people, should do all the time. For instance, trans folks and bisexual folks are facing discrimination from straight people and queer folks. On one hand, my thesis started with the argument that there is discrimination between different subgroups within the LGBTQ community. I hope everyone can participate with an open mind and be respectful to each other through the experience. There are no right or wrong answers in this workshop: the Queer World needs your point of view. The workshop started with an introduction of the game rules. External way to empower Chinese Queer Family