But while pride marches and gay bars flourish in cities such as Shanghai, many of the country's estimated 70 million LGBT people remain in the closet. Many are under intense pressure from their families to marry young and have children. Some flee to the big cities where they can be relatively open about their sexuality, while others enter fake marriages to keep their parents happy.

Traditional family unit

There is a common perception outside China that the conservative Communist Party and its army of censors is the main obstacle to being gay in China. However, almost any LGBT person you meet there will say it is not the government that is the problem but their parents.

China's social attitudes, which emphasise the importance of marriage and producing children, mean that people in China are under enormous pressure to start a family by the age of 30. Combine that with the absence of a free press and a political regime that does not exactly have a reputation for embracing diversity, and many gay Chinese have a problem.

"In China the main opposition is this traditional family unit, which in itself is not opposition in the way that religion can be in other countries. It also affects a lot of heterosexual women and Millennials who don't want to follow this track," says William Dai, who runs an underground queer film event in Shanghai once a month.

"Acceptance fluctuates in China: sometimes it is good, other times it hits low points," says Hu Jiamin. Chris Crerar

Unlike many Chinese, 29-year-old Dai, who was born in Beijing, eventually came out to his mother but took years to talk to his father about it directly.

Homosexuality was legalised in China in 1997 but few people are talking about even the possibility of gay marriage, which was legalised in Australia last year. However, China's gay community had a big victory in April this year when when the country's most popular social media site – a Twitter-like platform called Weibo – was forced to withdraw its ban on gay content.


Weibo's owner, Chinese technology giant Tencent, announced a surprise "clean-up campaign" to purge the microblogging site of images, videos, text and cartoons related to homosexuality and pornography. The company said it was complying with strict new government cyber security laws, one of the tools President Xi Jinping is using to tighten the Communist Party's control over all aspects of society.

But the move triggered a backlash against the company as tens of thousands protested online, many posting pictures of themselves with their same-sex partners. A video of gay activists asking strangers on the street to hug them to show their opposition to the clampdown also went viral. Surprisingly for a country where social activism and large protests are banned, it worked. Weibo lifted the ban days later.

Some of the women are straight, some are gay, others are not sure. Many look more masculine than the male Millennials shopping at the trendy sneaker store in the street below. Chris Crerar

"Weibo's decision didn't represent the country's opinion. Even the domestic media published an article recently saying to respect homosexuality. China is not going backwards," Ma Baoli, an ex-policeman who now runs China's biggest gay dating app, told AFR Weekend.

The move is seen by many in the community as a tipping point for gay rights in China, which it has been a struggle to have recognised with censors routinely clamping down on content and tough restrictions surrounding lobby groups.

Ma knows a thing or two about giving the censors the runaround in China when it comes to gay content. He has inadvertently become one of the country's best-known champions of gay rights after creating a business empire born out of his own personal despair at being unable to find romance. His company Blued is a gay dating app, which rivals Grindr with 30 million users and is about to raise $US100 million ($135 million) in its seventh round of funding.

When China clamped down on gay websites in 2005, he played "hide and seek" with the authorities and raised money from donors to rent a server in a different city. "It was like guerilla warfare," he says. For years, most of his neighbours thought he was running a pyramid selling company from his office.

Ma Baoli is an ex-policeman who now runs China's biggest gay dating app . ADAM DEAN


Too scared to meet

Ma's personal story is similar to millions of gay men and women growing up in China in the years after the Cultural Revolution. Growing up in the port city of Qinhuangdao in China's north, Ma was distraught as a teenager because he was not attracted to girls. He joined the local police force and kept his feelings hidden. His first encounter with gay content was a book about criminal psychology which described homosexuality as a psychological problem.

"I thought I must be sick," he recalls.

In the early years of the internet in 1998 before China banned many foreign websites, Ma found out it was considered normal in many countries. He decided to set up a website to educate Chinese gay men and help them meet.

"I really wanted to have a romance but I had a huge problem finding a partner. There was no channel at all to find a partner in China. I visited chat rooms and QQ [instant messaging] groups. I finally found someone in the same city but he didn't show up. He later messaged me to say he was too scared to make contact."

William Dai and Matthew Baren say the biggest hurdle for LGBT people in China is not the government but their families. Chris Crerar

Things changed in the lead-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics when the authorities were keen to give the rest of the world the impression that China was an open and tolerant society.

China's state news agency Xinhua ran a news story on Blued and the website flourished. Ma moved his company to Beijing.


When he finally revealed his identity in a documentary years later, Ma's boss in the police force told him to shut the website down or he would lose his job. He quit. His business has since flourished but his biggest achievement was finding a way to work with the Chinese government to fight HIV, which gave him a platform to speak up about gay rights without crossing a line that would brand him an activist.

Capitalism has been the driving force for millions of entrepreneurs like Ma, as well as many of the societal changes in China over the past 40 years. Activists also believe it was the reason why Weibo lifted its ban on gay content. In the end the company was more afraid of losing customers than any backlash from the government.

"Ultimately, Weibo is a corporate entity acting within a wider system. To be a bit cynical, of course they are going to respond when so many of their consumers are saying we are not standing for this," says British filmmaker Matthew Baren, who this year launched a documentary called Extravaganza about the backstage antics of drag queens in Shanghai.

"Let's see what happens further down the line but the fact so many people were willing to voice their displeasure on such a scale was hugely positive."

Dai, who is Baren's partner "in business and life", says the online protests were significant for China as the gay community had never been in the public spotlight in that way before.

"It was not talked about on that scale in the public eye really ever. So in a way it is quite exciting. It is viewed as a survey for the government," he says.

Snap! monthly parties in Shanghai are held in a different venue each time. Chris Crerar

The couple launched CINEMQ, an "underground collective" which has an online magazine and screens a kind of mix tape of short films, visuals and music with gay content in basements and bars around Shanghai once a month.


They have not had any problems with the authorities, which have a reputation for closing established gay venues. They say promoting gay and lesbian cinema is important in China because it is not featured much in mainstream media and struggles to secure government funding.

"Screen culture is important everywhere but especially in a country like China," Baren says. "We've been quite fortunate [with the authorities]. We talk to friends who do film in Guangzhou [a city in southern China] and hear about troubles they have. Shanghai is a bubble. It is important to find ways to challenge people to think about things differently."

Fake marriages

Like many of the people interviewed for this article, Baren and Dai say the biggest hurdle for LGBT people in China is not the government but their families. The pressure to get married young, whether straight or gay, is enormous. Many cave under family pressure and enter fake marriages to keep their parents off their back. Some even have children with their "fake" spouses or surrogate mothers in Thailand or the United States.

Part of the challenge in China is the authoritarian political system that makes it difficult for lobby groups campaigning on any social issue. LGBT groups have to be careful not to be seen as too powerful and consequently a potential threat to the Communist Party. There is a long history in China of overzealous local authorities shutting down gay venues, while foreign gay movies rarely make it onto the screens after being vetted by the country's conservative censors.

But the latest generation of young gay Chinese, particularly those returning home after studying in countries such as Australia, Britain or the United States, are finding life easier than they would have a decade ago.

Qiu Yelin, an art consultant who grew up in Beijing, co-founded a monthly party in Shanghai last year with three other friends after returning to China from studying in the United States.

"We didn't expect it to become so big. Not being attached to a physical venue, being on the authorities' radar is low. Our only presence is on WeChat [China's popular messaging app]," he says at a cafe in Shanghai. "The term pink dollar has been floated around a bit. There is still a lot to be done."


Partygoers at Snap! The events have been a mild commercial success for the founders. Chris Crerar

The event called Snap!, which changes venues each month, started as a group of friends having dinner parties before moving on to host parties for people they knew. It outgrew its original venue last year and this year started to make real money, Qiu says.

Like Ma's Blued, Qiu and his friends have enjoyed some commercial success, when the original idea was just to set up a place for LGBT people and their friends to meet.

It outgrew its first venue and in 2018 started to attract sponsors such as Adidas, Levis and the W Hotel. It also organises charity events. Qiu and his business partners, who work in retail, a family lumber business and marketing, have not given up their day jobs yet but make a modest salary for the time they put in organising the event.

Snap! generally entails strobe lights, dance beats, a crowded bar and drag queens strutting their stuff. This is a confident crowd of young Chinese who have been exposed to more liberal attitudes while studying overseas and do not care so much about what their parents think. It could be a club in Melbourne or Sydney except a place like this would not have existed a decade ago and is a contrast to the city's underground gay bars, many of which have closed down.

Quiet progress

Qiu came out to his family who live in Beijing after coaxing from his Western partner. "It is still a huge hurdle for many people in China. It took my boyfriend's nudging me to come out to my parents which proved to be disastrous," he says. "I am not allowed to tell the extended family."

Qiu believes that the Chinese government is waking up to the fact that many LGBT people are productive members of society. They also have spending power in China's consumer-led economy, which means technology giants such as Tencent have an incentive to allow gay content instead of overreacting to what it thinks the government might want banned.


"Profits and user engagement come into play," he says. "That is why Weibo isn't saying yes to censorship. These companies know better than anyone else when there is a public outcry.

"It is not illegal or considered a psychological disorder. But in reality the difficulties come from traditional education about family.

The Snap! parties feature strobe lights, dance beats, a crowded bar and drag queens strutting their stuff. Chris Crerar

"Western observers don't understand that issues often get resolved because they are quietly done. If it is getting less attention it doesn't mean the cause is not being furthered."

But as in many elements of Chinese society, there are few legal protections against discrimination or any formal recognition of a same-sex relationship.

Qiu says he was shocked during a job interview last year when the female recruiter asked him if he was homophobic. It turned out the company's boss was gay and there had been some problems with former staff having an issue with the situation.

"Her question gave me some hope," he says.