The story of Queer Comrades brings together several interrelated issues
central to this book: community media, queer activism and an increasingly politicized queer identity, represented by the term tongzhi used in the Chinese name of the webcast. Literally ‘comrade’, tongzhi is one of the most popular terms to refer to sexual minorities in China today. Despite the numerous other terms that circulate in China, including tongxinglian (homosexual) and ku’er (queer), tongzhi is the most widely accepted term for self-identification by queer people in early 21st century China. – Queer Comrades: Gay Identity and Tongzhi Activism
in Postsocialist China – Dr. Hongwei Bao
Category Archives: Blogs
Unraveled – Death of S.A Teacher Highlights Casual Racism in China’s Medical Industry
“If one really wishes to know how justice is administered in a country, one does not question the policemen, the lawyers, the judges, or the protected members of the middle class. One goes to the unprotected – those, precisely, who need the law’s protection most! – and listens to their testimony.”
– No Name on the Street, James Baldwin
Foreign & Feared – Chinese CDC’s Monkeypox Advice Sparks Xenophobia and Homophobia
“Our love of lockstep is our greatest curse, the source of all that bedevils us. It is the source of homophobia, xenophobia, racism, sexism, terrorism, bigotry of every variety and hue, because it tells us there is one right way to do things, to look, to behave, to feel, when the only right way is to feel your heart hammering inside you and to listen to what its timpani is saying.”
― Anna Quindlen
Phoenix Rising – Sri Lanka’s Queer Community Anticipates Penal Code Change
“I was able to leave the constraints of myself and ascend into another, more brilliant, more beautiful self, a self to whom this day was dedicated, and around whom the world, represented by my cousins putting flowers in my hair, draping the palu, seemed to revolve. It was a self magnified, like the goddesses of the Sinhalese and Tamil cinema, larger than life; and like them, like the Malini Fonsekas and the Geetha Kumarasinghes, I was an icon, a graceful, benevolent, perfect being upon whom the adoring eyes of the world rested.”
― Shyam Selvadurai, Funny Boy
Colorsplained – The Struggle of Being Mixed-Race in China’s Queer Dating Market
“Intimacy lies in the body and the soul, in scent, in touch and taste and sound. A man whose name you don’t know can tell you a tale to move you to tears, just by filling and emptying his lungs, by moving his tongue and lips, his fingers. Even after, you might never know him.”
― Indra Das, The Devourers
In the Weeds: Finding Community in Times of Crisis
“Most people think the closet is a small room. They think you can touch the walls, touch the door, turn the handle, and walk free. But when you’re inside it, the closet is vast. No walls, no door, just empty darkness stretching the length of the world.”
― S.J. Sindu, Marriage of a Thousand Lies
Measured Hope: India & Nepal’s Long, Similar Journeys to LGBTQIA+ Equality
Four years after officially scrapping Section 377 which criminalized homosexual sex acts from the Penal Code, India’s Supreme Court has seen yet another landmark ruling in favor of LGBTQIA+ members of Indian society. In a Supreme Court ruling issued on August 28, justices DY Chandrachud and AS Bopanna ruled that “non-traditional families” including those formedContinue reading “Measured Hope: India & Nepal’s Long, Similar Journeys to LGBTQIA+ Equality”
Silent Scream: Conversations Rarely Had About Suicide & One Activist’s Mission
“It’s my experience that people are a lot more sympathetic if they can see you hurting, and for the millionth time in my life I wish for measles or smallpox or some other easily understood disease just to make it easier on me and also on them.”
― Jennifer Niven, All the Bright Places
Fake-cation – Tracing Illusions of Black, Queer Luxury in China
“To subject to scrutiny the mechanisms which render life painful, even untenable, is not to neutralize them; to bring to light contradictions is not to resolve them. But, as skeptical as one might be about the efficacy of the sociological message, we cannot dismiss the effect it can have by allowing sufferers to discover the possible social causes of their suffering and, thus, to be relieved of blame.”
― Pierre Bourdieu, The Weight of the World: Social Suffering in Contemporary Society
Queer Sexual Economics: Color Theory and the Dark Side of the Moon
“And then he thought, profoundly, how there was something grand about living in hope, but also something terribly unreal and incomplete about it, because when you were hoping, you were not doing or living or experiencing the Now,”
― Larry Kramer, Faggots
Queer Sexual Economics: Tracing Shame and other Fun Activities
“What we have invented, Hans, is a new religion. Oh, not the moralistic and old-fashioned theological kind with that God who does not want us, but one with brutal splendours, magnificent contemporary rites and rituals, scenes, gestures, sacrifices, humiliations, terrors, tremblings, mortifications, degradations, phantasmagoric transfigurations into other realms of feeling, new realisations that will come from this cleansing purge, and then transcendencies unto a New World of our own making, with our own new rules and rewards and justifications.”
― Larry Kramer, Faggots
Queer Sexual Economics: Top + Bottom= Vers?
“And every faggot couple I know is deep into friendship and deep into fucking with everyone else but each other and any minute any bump appears in their commitment to infinitesimally obstruct their view, out they zip like petulant kids to suck someone else’s lollipop instead of trying to work things out, instead of trying not to hide, and…unh…why do faggots have to fuck so fucking much?!”
― Larry Kramer, Faggots
Americanah: Delightful Parallels with the Queer, Migrant Story
“If you don’t understand, ask questions. If you’re uncomfortable about asking questions, say you are uncomfortable about asking questions and then ask anyway. It’s easy to tell when a question is coming from a good place. Then listen some more. Sometimes people just want to feel heard. Here’s to possibilities of friendship and connection and understanding.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah
Queer Covid Chronicles: Where Were You When it Started?
“Genghis Khan said the hand Is the first thing one man gives To another. Not in this war. A gesture of limited distance Now suffices, a nod, A minor smile or a hand Slightly raised, Not in search of its counterpart, Just a warning within The acknowledgment to stand back.”
― Ilan Stavans, And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again: Writers from Around the World on the COVID-19 Pandemic
Domino Effect: What Lumumba’s Murder Mean’s to Queer Kenyans Abroad
“Today I wore a pair of faded old jeans and a plain grey baggy shirt. I hadn’t even taken a shower, and I did not put on an ounce of makeup. I grabbed a worn out black oversized jacket to cover myself with even though it is warm outside. I have made conscious decisions lately to look like less of what I felt a male would want to see. I want to disappear.”
― Sierra D. Waters, Debbie.
Double-edged Sword: Enduring Misconceptions About Bisexual Men
“Many bisexuals might indeed feel comfortable and well represented by [creating images of ‘stable, monogamous, appropriately sexual’ bisexuals], but what of the many people who don’t fit in this standard of the “normal” or “good” bisexual? Some bisexuals are sluts (read: sexually independent women), some bisexuals are just experimenting, some like people of certain genders only sexually and not romantically, some like to have threesomes and perform bisexuality for men, some are HVI and STI carriers, some don’t practice safer sex, some are indeed indecisive and confused, some cheat on their partners, some do choose to be bi, as well as many other things that the “myth-busting” [or simplifying/sanitizing] tries to cast off. A very long list of people is being thrown overboard in the effort to “fight biphobia.” In this way, the rebuttal in fact imposes biphobic normative standards on the bisexual community itself, drawing a line between “good” and “bad” bisexuals.
Either way, benign docility and unthreatening citizenship are not exactly what I would want my bisexuality to be associated with.”
― Shiri Eisner, Bi: Notes for a Bisexual Revolution
Shark-Infested Waters: Pitfalls of Black Queer Online Dating in China – Episode 5
“Call When You Say You’re Going To Call. Sometimes being ambivalent about following up with someone (you kinda/sorta like him but you’re not crazy about him) will lead you to play deliberate phone tag. Maybe you call when you know he’ll be at work. Or you tell him to call when you know you won’t be available. Eventually, when nothing happens because of all the missed connections, you tell yourself, well, at least I tried. No you didn’t. Suck it up and call when you’re supposed to.”
― Mike Alvear, Gay Online Dating: How To Meet, Attract And Date The Hottest Guys On The Internet
Piquing’s Picks – Queer News Stories You Should Read Today
We have scoured the internet to find the most LGBTQIA+-relevant stories that are either trending, worth a read, or long-forgotten but still relevant and thought-provoking, so that you don’t have to. Each week, Piquing Duck will summarize a handful of stories, often tied to relevant facts, historical events, or current affairs in the LGBTQIA+ world globally, providing links and resources for those who wish to read the stories in full. Please be sure to follow the links provided to read the stories summarized in detail, and access more resources to further enhance your understanding of the stories shared.
It’s All Just Drag: What’s the Tea on the Drag Scene In China? – Podcast Episode 4
“Barry prided himself on his ability to keep his lives separate. . . He was Bianca on two Saturday nights a month, and otherwise, he pushed her out of sight, even though he thought about her, shopped for her, planned for her eventual return. Barry went to faculty meetings and family reunions and church, Bianca always lingering on the edge of his mind. She had her role to play and Barry had his. You could live a life this way, split. As long as you knew who was in charge.”
― Brit Bennett, The Vanishing Half
Gays and Girls Behaving Badly: The Dynamics of the GBFF Relationship -Podcast Episode 3
“This is my game within our game—to try to come up with the scenario in which it would work out better. Maybe if I met him now. Maybe if I met him in college. After college. Once he’s comfortable with who he is. But every time I do this, I feel awful. Because I’m sacrificing our history. I don’t love him for who he is now. I wouldn’t love him for who he is two years from now. I love him for all the hims he’s already been with me. I guess that’s the contradiction. I want a fresh start. I would fight for that fresh start. But I also want it to be a continuation.”
― David Levithan, You Know Me Well
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