‘Unfinished Business - Voices of the LGBTQIA+ Revolution’ Event 4 - The worldwide movement for Queer Freedom in China

SOAS is proud to launch the third event in our series ‘Unfinished Business - Voices of the LGBTQIA+ Revolution’ that focuses on practical tools to dismantle colonial homophobic laws. 

‘Unfinished Business - Voices of the LGBTQIA+ Revolution’ Event 4 - The worldwide movement for Queer Freedom in China - with leading ‘Queer China UK’ activists and scholars Qiuyan Chen and Mac Wang. Here we will explore the censorship/repression against LGBTQIA+ people in China over the past few years and community resistance and resilience in response. We will discuss the current state of legal rights for LGBTQIA+ students and young professionals, such as equal education rights, employment discrimination, domestic/intimate violence, marriage rights and the ban conversion therapy campaign.

About the speakers

Qiuyan Chen (she/her) is a Chinese LGBTQ+ activist and socially engaged artist. In 2015-17 she pursued three lawsuits against the Chinese Ministry of Education over homophobic textbooks and continued to advocate for LGBTQ+ inclusive education through various creative means. After moving to the UK, she founded Queer China UK, a community organisation that provides a safe space for Chinese LGBTQ+ diaspora and allies. In recent years, Qiuyan has curated many interesting activities with her lovely community, including Queer Chinese Art Festival, queering Chinatown zine making workshop and UK-China queer dialogue.

Mac Wang (he/him) is a master's student in Social Research Methods at LSE. Previously he was a core moderator of ColorsWorld - the most influential student-led LGBTQ+ activism organisation in China (200+ members & 20k+ followers). His research interest thus lies in Chinese university LGBTQ+ groups and their negotiation with online/offline censorship. Mac has also been working at the Beijing LGBT centre - a nationwide leading LGBTQ+ NGO. He is looking forward to talking about intensifying digital censorship, community resistance and resilience, transnational sexual politics, etc. with (and learning from) all the panellists.

Online event: register via Zoom