‘Rainbow Hunters’ Target LGBTQ Chinese Students

That afternoon of May 17, the university removed all visible rainbow flags and followed up by shutting down an unofficial student-run club advocating for the rights and welfare of LGBTQ students.

“I knew the crackdown was coming sooner or later, but I didn’t expect it to come so quickly,” said Bonnie, a co-founder of the university’s LGBTQ club, who has since graduated and relocated outside mainland China.

In recent years, gender and sexual minorities in China have been increasingly targeted by the authorities and social media platforms, limiting their advocacy and outreach. Most recently, in May, the Beijing LGBT Center was unexpectedly closed, and in 2021, WeChat abruptly shut down several accounts belonging to LGBTQ groups from different universities without any reason.

But nine former and current students from five Chinese universities, some of whom wished not to be quoted, told Foreign Policy that student-led LGBTQ groups have been under immense pressure for years. They’re seen as a “cult” and labeled as “radical” and “illegal” organizations and have been dying a slow death even before the recent crackdowns. Foreign Policy isn’t naming the schools and clubs or disclosing the students’ real names to protect their identities and from possible repercussions against them or their families.

“The media reports have been fixated on the 2021 crackdown,” Bonnie said. “But we were silenced much earlier than that. I wonder if our existence will disappear from memory, as the large focus is on the WeChat crackdown. I envy those organizations [blocked by WeChat] because they can unite under the same flag. But how do we tell our story?”

“We are determined to eliminate ignorance through knowledge, combat ignorance with reason, replace apathy with empathy, and treat discrimination with equality,” Jerlin said of the motivation behind starting an LGBTQ club at the university.

In its first year, the club organized movie screenings and book readings on gender and invited experts to speak about safer sex and body anxiety issues. Members also started a campaign to raise awareness and empathy toward LGBTQ students, where they went around campus with a placard asking a simple question: “I’m gay. Are you willing to hug me?” Students said many of their classmates, even those who claimed to be open-minded, often made fun of LGBTQ individuals and even called them derogatory names.

A national survey conducted in 2015 by the U.N. Development Program among some 28,000 LGBTI individuals revealed that only 5 percent of them chose to disclose their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression at school or in the workplace, fearing discrimination. A 2019 survey by the Chinese Journal of School Health involving 751 LGBT students showed that 41 percent of them had been called names and 35 percent verbally abused.

By October 2018, Jerlin said their club was already on the university’s radar. Club events were being “supervised” by school administrators, and a planned interaction on HIV/AIDS was abruptly canceled. Then the university introduced new rules prohibiting outsiders from entering the school library and study rooms, where the group hosted events. Students were then also required to reserve study rooms unlike before.

“This is when I realized the school was engaging in a witch hunt against us,” Bonnie said. “The intense scrutiny of the club made many students believe we were nothing but trouble and an illegal organization. So many of them, even those who claimed to be gay, started hating us.”

Gu Li, an assistant professor of psychology at New York University Shanghai who studies the development and mental health of LGBTQ individuals, said many university-level students could be struggling with their sexuality and self-acceptance issues. He said student groups and their organized activities may serve as an opportunity to learn about sexual orientation and gender identity while connecting with others.

“How those groups are organized and what activities they conduct are more impactful than the mere presence of the groups,” he said.

People hold rainbow flags and a banner as they march on the street during an anti-discrimination parade in Changsha, in China’s Hunan province, on May 17, 2013. AFP via Getty Images

The positive signals indicated a seemingly tolerant attitude toward the LGBTQ community, both from the public and the authorities. But those small wins have mostly been short-lived, as the rhetoric against LGBTQ individuals in certain quarters has turned sharply negative in the past few years. Many nationalists view their identity as a “Western ideology” similar to feminism. There are arguments against Western-style gay pride parades and rainbow capitalism in China, saying for many LGBTQ Chinese, “their familial role and national identity take precedence” over sexuality.

Meanwhile, both the central and local governments have been aggressively promoting incentives for young people to marry and have children amid China’s record-low marriage and childbirth rates. A made-up “masculinity crisis” and malicious targeting of effeminate men have also led to a shift in attitude toward LGBTQ acceptance. In recent years, television channels have blurred rainbow flags, and social media platforms have banned “sissy” men during livestreams, a term that the official state-run Xinhua News Agency described as a “sick culture.”

Then, in 2020, Shanghai Pride, a series of events rather than a parade, abruptly ended, and this year, the Beijing LGBT Center, which had been a crucial support system for the community, shut down due to “force majeure”—a common euphemism for pressure from the authorities—after almost 15 years, raising concerns over the shrinking space for the LGBTQ community in China.

Lik Sam Chan, an assistant professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and co-chair of the International Communication Association LGBTQ Studies Interest Group, said the suppression of LGBTQ activities in China could have stemmed from the ruling Communist Party’s fears of potential Western influence through such events. He said those opposing the LGBTQ community were developing a group identity by negating others and defining “what is not us.”

“What has happened in the last one or two years is an obvious, targeted suppression of LGBTQ-themed activities,” Chan said. “The LGBTQ movement and the #MeToo movement are an unfortunate target, set up by the nationalists, to solidify their sense of Chineseness.”

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Targeted suppression and intolerance are creeping in at universities sooner than many in the LGBTQ community expected. In June, graffiti featuring a rainbow flag with accompanying text saying “Love is love” on a campus wall at a Dalian university in northeastern Liaoning province was vandalized. Such displays of anti-gay sentiments at schools were, however, not uncommon and frequently made rounds on social media previously.

Amy, who briefly led a university-approved club that also advocated LGBTQ issues at another university in Shanghai, said she joined the group after having a “vague idea” about her sexuality. When she came across the club in 2018 during her freshman year, Amy said she was fascinated by the rainbow flags and the diverse events the group organized, mostly focusing on gender and sexuality.

“It made me feel at home,” she said.

But the situation took an unexpected turn in the spring of 2019. Amy said a school administrator advised the club to pursue more feminist issues and “avoid LGBTQ topics.” She said a teacher repeatedly questioned her sexuality and asked if she was attracted to women. The teacher cautioned her multiple times to “not cross the red lines,” specifically referring to LGBTQ issues and the rainbow flag. Amy said the same teacher told her not to wear a rainbow flag pin after she was spotted wearing one during an event.

“‘You don’t want a stain on your resume, do you?’” Amy said, recalling what the teacher once told her. “Is it because we are inappropriate to be seen in public? It was isolating, and I felt I was being treated as an outcast.”

Amy’s experience is not an isolated case. In 2022, two female students at China’s prestigious Tsinghua University were given disciplinary warnings after leaving 10 rainbow flags at a campus supermarket counter. The students, who belonged to the school’s LGBTQ club, Purple, attempted to sue the Education Ministry over the incident, but a court in Beijing, where the university is located, didn’t accept their lawsuit.

“Symbols are powerful,” Chan said, referring to the rainbow flags and other memorabilia. “They are infused with meanings and emotions. When the LGBTQ community is constantly suppressed and their rights are not recognized, it is even more critical to maintain the visibility of these symbols so that we don’t forget our goal.”

A lesbian couple take a selfie in front of a Cathay Pacific advertisement showing a same-sex couple walking on a beach, during an event to raise awareness of gay rights at a train station in Hong Kong on May 25, 2019. Philip Fong/AFP via Getty Images

When WeChat deleted dozens of accounts related to LGBTQ student groups at universities—including Peking University, Tsinghua University, and Fudan University—the messaging platform didn’t just disband online groups but severed a network that connected hundreds of thousands of people. The move came abruptly in July 2021, with many still trying to understand the reason behind it. The accounts were said to have “violated regulations”—a standard censorship catchphrase used when posts deemed sensitive by the authorities are taken down. And while some groups are still operating covertly, often under disguise, many others have shut down altogether.

A day after WeChat closed the LGBTQ accounts, Chinese firebrand nationalist commentator Hu Xijin wrote in his WeChat blog that public opinion toward the LGBTQ community was “generally inclusive” and that the government’s policies were “progressive.” But he then added that the LGBTQ community “should not seek to become a high-profile ideology in China at this time.”

But for LGBTQ individuals, their identity is not an ideology. And they say the ongoing suppression is proving detrimental to their mental health.

A study published this year surveying nearly 90,000 LGBT and gender-nonconforming students at 63 universities in the northeastern province of Jilin indicated a “higher prevalence of depression, anxiety, traumatic stress, nonsuicidal self-injury, and suicide risk” than their cisgender heterosexual counterparts. The report concluded that there is an “imperative need to improve mental health and prevent suicide” among these individuals.

A yet-to-be-published survey by Li from NYU Shanghai in partnership with the gay dating app Blued also pointed to a similar trend. The partial result, shared with Foreign Policy, showed that of the 4,310 men surveyed on Blued, 57 percent of them reported various degrees of depression, from mild to moderate and severe.

Li said various factors are contributing to the deteriorating mental health among LGBTQ people, including internalized homophobia, prejudice, and discrimination.

“We will need more care for LGBTQ people in China, such as providing more LGBTQ-affirmative psychotherapies,” he said. “Having LGBTQ-supportive communities and schools and having mental health resources available will make people feel less depressed. They will have a positive impact.”

But for now, those involved in the student LGBTQ groups said they were facing tough mental health issues.

Amy said she struggled throughout the summer of 2019: She felt frustrated, unaware of how to operate the club, and was “unsure about my identity as a lesbian and the club’s leader.” She said she forced herself to work until 2 a.m. and often questioned her efforts to keep the club afloat. Finally, in August 2020, with no support from the university, the club ceased its operation. She said she sought counseling at a facility run by the Beijing LGBT Center, where she was diagnosed with depression.

“Memories associated with this period have been filtered to only feelings, which were full of tears, fear, and disgrace, along with other members of the club,” she said. “We want the threats and shame forced on us to be documented.”

Bonnie, too, said she often questioned her conviction toward the cause and spiraled into depression for an entire year in 2019 after her university group ceased to exist. She said she was even reluctant to post anything on social media and felt she was “always being watched by people.”

In 2021, Bonnie left China. These days, she mostly dedicates her time to feminist causes and sometimes interacts with those still advocating for LGBTQ issues in China. She sees a part of her in them, trying to keep the spark alight even despite the darkness. And every time she remembers their collective struggles, Bonnie said she finds solace listening to “Hey You,” one of her favorite tracks by the English rock band Pink Floyd.

The lyrics remind her to be optimistic: “Hey you, don’t tell me there’s no hope at all / Together we stand, divided we fall.”