White Rabbit: Tender Comrade
It’s not easy being gay in the People’s Republic of China, but then it’s not easy being anything that deviates from the government’s official standard of acceptability. This doesn’t mean homosexuals are outlawed and brutally repressed, more likely they have simply learned to be discreet. In China, where homosexuality was decriminalised in 1997, the unspoken rule is that almost anything will be tolerated just so long as it is kept out of the public spotlight.
As there has probably never been a civilisation anywhere, at any time, without homosexuals, a disapproving government couldn’t stamp out same sex relations if they tried. It can, however, make life difficult for those who flaunt their sexual preferences and disrupt the conventions of “social harmony”. While China has its gay bars and clubs, they are not widely advertised, and Beijing would not be the ideal place to celebrate Pride Month. The flamboyant displays we see at Sydney’s Gay Mardi Gras are inconceivable on the wide avenues of the Chinese capital.
All this makes Tender Comrade – the current exhibition at the White Rabbit Gallery – less controversial than might be imagined. It’s not just the LGBTQIA+ crowd in China who are hesitant to go marching in the streets to demand their human rights, it’s pretty much everybody. The Chinese have found, occasionally through bitter experience, that’s it’s better to stay under the radar and put up with inconveniences rather than poke the bear. The key to a peaceful life is that one learns to live within certain parameters, never drawing attention to oneself.