Ban of LGBT contents in China — The motivation and implications
So here’s an Independent article for you:
Skimmed through? Ok, those who are familiar with me would know what I would say:

What a load of bull****.
First of all, the ban is only on TV shows and those of webs.
“No television drama shall show abnormal sexual relationships and behaviours, such as incest, same-sex relationships, sexual perversion, sexual assault, sexual abuse, sexual violence, and so on.”
One can easily find LGBT contents on Weibo, Zhihu. People are definitely discussing this topic, and mad at State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television.

China’s opposition towards LGBT has more pragmatic reasons. Here I’m saying pragmatic but I’m not saying that coincides with intelligence. China didn’t hate gays, there were poems and stories about old lords and even emperors keeping male concubines. Nobody wants their kids to be LGBT because it makes it hard for them to extend their bloodline, and that’s compounded with one child policy. That is even true for LGBT groups themselves. Many people would hide their sexual orientation just so they can get married to have kid, then go cheat on their wives/husbands. Some gay couples would form two marriage with lesbian couples. But no one really say that Gayness is a sin, which I see still as the primary reason western countries opposition admits to oppose LGBT groups.
Since there is basically no religious reason(which is probably the hardest reason to overcome) for homophobia, why is such a ban in place? To understand it, I’d like to draw an analogy with the US.
The US population can be loosely categorized into two groups: the conservatives and the liberals. The conservatives mostly occupy rural and less densely populated towns, generally less friendly towards LGBT, more likely to be a Trump supporter. The liberals tends to concentrate in population centers and big cities. Texas is a giant red state surrounding the blue Austin, for example.
Should it come as a surprise that China’s population and political spectrum follows the same pattern?
Older population, which fortunately or unfortunately, still holds the power of the Communist Party. Just like the republicans have to cater to their voters, the Communist Party has to make its large rural citizens happy. Contrary to popular belief, the CCP takes peoples’ view very seriously. If a bill doesn’t pass with 80% Yes vote in People’s Congress, chances are someone will lose their job. If Xi Jinping were to throw this bill on the floor now, it will for sure pass, but that might not be so good for Xi’s reign.
That is not to say they will not piss off young people. However, I’ve not met a young person who watches TV shows for a long time. This ban has cleverly mitigated the pressure off their lives. Literally it was one of the smartest move of censorship: older people have their eyes clean, young people keep on their lives, LGBT lifestyles thrive where haters won’t see. Had it not been a huge fuss from the poor wording from the state agency, everyone would remain chill.
Also let’s not forget the elephant in the room. Taiwan has very recently legalized same sex marriage, a first in East Asia. Taiwan still has Confucius roots no matter how hard some people might want to distant themselves from it. I bet this never made it to western news:

Taiwan has a bit over 23 million people. Let’s just assume that the proportion of Chinese people who would show up to protest in China is of similar proportion had such law passes, that’s over one million people on the street. CCP isn’t that stupid. Taiwan did this mostly as a political move to appease their young voters and to get a good image internationally. CPP has no such motivation.The current leadership in CCP has such a deep mistrust of western values, LGBT, which has unfortunately been lumped into it, would also be rejected, at least in the mainstream conversations.
At the end of the day, it wouldn’t even cause a dent in young peoples’ support of the government. Most of them are just glad, as I quote from a random popular comment, that “The CCP didn’t spend useless time debating LGBT issues like the US.”
