Final 12 months’s Tokyo Olympics featured extra out LGBTQ+ individuals than any identified earlier Olympics.
Of the 11,000 Olympians competing in Tokyo, a minimum of 186 recognized as LGBTQ, based on the SB Nation blog Outsports — a groundbreaking second within the historical past of the illustration of marginalized sexualities and gender identities within the sporting world.
Outsports reviews that the Beijing Video games could have a file variety of publicly out athletes for the Winter Video games — but, it seems to be like these Olympians could also be performing within the shadow of rising challenges confronted by sexual minorities and their supporters in China.
Rising strain in China: Though the nation eliminated homosexuality from its official checklist of psychological issues in 2001, the LGBTQ neighborhood in China continues to face official harassment and same-sex marriage stays unlawful throughout the nation.
In recent times, the Chinese language authorities has accelerated its strain on LGBTQ+ rights and areas. In 2017, Chinese language authorities banned on-line video platforms from sharing content material that contained the depiction of “irregular sexual behaviors” — which, based on these authorities, included same-sex relationships.
Regular crackdown: In July 2021, WeChat — a well-liked messaging app within the nation — shut down greater than a dozen of LGBTQ+ accounts run by college college students and sparked widespread concern over the censorship of gender and sexual minorities.
The 12 months earlier than, Shanghai Satisfaction — China’s longest-running Satisfaction occasion often attended by hundreds of LGBTQ+ individuals from throughout the nation — abruptly canceled all their scheduled activities attributable to mounting strain from native authorities, based on a supply with information of the scenario that spoke to CNN on the time.
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