End AIDS for a Healthy China: Rethinking Gay/AIDS Activism in Mainland China from the Case Study of the China AIDS Walk

Abstract

  Prior to 2010, the social movement of gay males in mainland China has grown due to the forging of a close relationship with the HIV/AIDS prevention programs run by the Chinese government. However, after 2010, the core issue of the movement changed to “eliminating discrimination against sexual minorities.” This paper examines the process of this change in activism by reviewing and rethinking the history and current situation of the gay/AIDS movement in mainland China. Using the case study of the China AIDS Walk, as an example, I argue that first, the strategic compromises made by the gay/AIDS movement in China in response to an increasingly difficult political environment has also resulted in the creation of considerable space for practical activism. Second, the movement’s shift in focus from primarily HIV/AIDS prevention to anti-discrimination can partly be attributed to the rise of the lesbian movement and its call for the inclusion of lesbian and transgender women as sexual minorities. Finally, by looking into the activities of the China AIDS Walk in 2018, I will argue that although there is an obvious resistance to the government’s erasure of the gay/AIDS movement’s contribution to the public health system, the concentration on borrowing official discourses for legitimacy limits the movement’s potential in criticizing the normalization of able-bodiedness and Chinese nationalism.