ABSTRACT
This chapter examines health activism in China’s queer communities. Using Queer Comrades, a Beijing-based queer community video streaming website as a case study, it discusses some of the tactics that China’s queer communities have adopted for health communication, including the strategic use of digital video documentaries by a community non-governmental organisations and a video streaming website. The chapter then examines how health activism combined with media and community activism can help build communities, promote health rights, and educate the public on queer issues. Homosexuality is widely considered to have been depathologised in China since 2001. The Chinese Classification of Mental Disorders-3 distinguishes between two types of homosexuality: ego-syntonic homosexuality, that is, those who feel comfortable with their sexual identity, and ego-dystonic homosexuality, that is, those who do not. Founded in 2007, Queer Comrades, originally named ‘Queer as Folk Beijing’ in English, is an independent queer video streaming website that aims to document queer culture and raise queer awareness in China.
