A viral Instagram post with more than 94,000 likes claims that LGBT content has been banned from Chinese television. “China has banned transgenders from TV including a ban on showing LGBT relationships on television,” the post reads.
The post is accurate, but the prohibitions it references aren’t new. China imposed bans on LGBT television content in 2015, and they remain in place today.
In December 2015, Chinese government censors released updated regulations on several types of TV content. According to The Guardian’s reporting at the time, these regulations included a prohibition on media depictions of “abnormal sexual relationships and behaviors, such as incest, same-sex relationships, sexual perversion, sexual assault, sexual abuse, sexual violence, and so on.” Content depicting activities like adultery, smoking, and drinking was also restricted.
Following the release of the updated regulations, several popular Chinese web dramas that included vulgar language, sexual scenes, or depictions of crime were taken offline. In 2021, China extended these restrictions further, placing a ban on television content that depicts effeminate men.
While China ended legal persecution of LGBT activity in 1997 and removed homosexuality from its list of mental health disorders in 2001, discrimination still occurs across the country. Same-sex marriages are not recognized in China, and LGBT activism groups, under pressure from government officials, have been forced to cease operations in recent years.
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