Speaking from experience. I realized I was gay in high school in China and nobody around me from my teachers and classmates to my parents and extended family gave me any trouble — except the grand narrative on everyone’s mind was that, because I am gay, my future lay completely with the west, mostly cuz of this “western value” idea Chen seems to subscribe to. It was a big factor why I so eagerly moved the US and became an absolutely cringe Eurocentric lib till recently.

There’s perhaps something to be said about how queer people in non-western worlds might be assumed/pushed to identify with the western capitalist world that has middle-class-washed and hijacked the lgbt liberation movements. But this line of thought is always too close to home for me to rationally think about

I expect that from Qatar with it being an officially Islamic state that specifically draws legislation from religion, but I don’t expect it from an atheist, communist country like China. Anti-LGBT rhetoric is steeped in reactionary thought. The only justification against it is religion and when that doesn’t work, they come up with conspiracy theories like the whole grooming thing or trans panic. I’ve seen more breathless coverage about puberty blockers than fucking safe drinking water, but that’s reaction for you; take an edge case and make it seem like it’s everywhere.

It’s like that clip of that Walsh guy on Rogan getting fact checked. Walsh asserted without evidence that there were “millions” of kids on puberty blockers, but Rogan’s producer fact-checked him and told him it’s less than 5,000 over years. But hey, if we’re doing wall-to-wall coverage of issues that effect 5,000 people, I’ve got some potholes on my work commute that need a fucking act of Congress to be filled, I guess.