Queer Politics in China: A Conversation with “Western” Activists Working in Beijing

Abstract

U L I S E S M O R E N O T A B A R E Z [ U M T ] : This project aims to provide perspectives on queer activism in China. This piece is an edited transcript of an interview/conversation with activists who have experience with Chinese queer organizing groups. This project addresses gaps in knowledge available to activists and scholars in the “West” about the complexities and diversity of queer activism in China. Addressing these knowledge gaps for Western audiences is important given that China, and by extension queer communities therein, are often homogenized, if not rendered invisible in mainstream Western discourse inside and outside China. Along the same line and aligned with QED’s mission, this conversation provides experienced perspectives on how queer worldmaking praxis unfolds in China, a sometimes elusive geopolitical context even to those working within its ranks. This project is specific to queer activists mainly working in Beijing but also on projects that extend to broader regions of mainland China and, in some cases, overseas Chinese diaspora. The participants each maintain different levels of insider/ outsider status in relation to China and the Western world, meaning that our experiences place us each in different locations on that spectrum from insider to outsider. We use the demarcation “Western,” in quotation marks, to signal a balancing act between our insider and outsider positions. Not all the participants are from Western countries, but we all have attended, are