• kristina [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    Dug into it, and there wasn’t any reasons given, however some people that used to go there speculated the following:

    • The US Consulate was invited to speak at the center a couple of times… which seems uh… like an extremely bad decision. I’ve talked to people in China involved in centers and that is a HUGE no-no.

    • There were conflicts with neighboring buildings that led to them being kicked out of their building.

    • Othello [comrade/them, love/loves]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      The US Consulate was invited to speak at the center a couple of times… which seems uh… like an extremely bad decision. I’ve talked to people in China involved in centers and that is a HUGE no-no.

      oof that is definitely suspicious

      here were conflicts with neighboring buildings that led to them being kicked out of their building.

      typical, happens all the time everywhere.

      • kristina [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        Yeah there are plenty of groups that still operate in Beijing, obviously, at least 10 major ones from what I can tell. So while it does suck, its overblown that people think this is the end of LGBT activities in Beijing in western media.

    • Putinbot [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Unfortunately, a co-founder of the Beijing LGBT Center, Wan Yanhai, had ties to the NED, which the government has been cracking down on more recently. Yanhai had a fellowship with them. He was also one of the signatories of the Charter 08 manifesto, which called for the end of CCP rule and privatization of all state-owned enterprises. Also doesn’t really help that there are still some out of touch socially conservative boomers in the government, who believe LGBT activism to be a western plot. China is still overall making progress in LGBT rights, especially with younger Chinese being generally very supportive, but there are still occasional setbacks along the way like this.