Queer comrades: Digital video documentary and LGBTQ health activism in China

Bao, Hongwei

Abstract

This chapter examines health activism in the People’s Republic of China by focusing on China’s LGBTQ communities. Using Queer Comrades (Tongzhi yi fanren 同志亦凡人), a Beijing-based queer community video streaming website, as a case study, I discuss some of the tactics that China’s LGBTQ communities use for health communication, represented by the strategic use of digital video (DV) documentaries by a community NGO and video streaming website. In doing so, I examine how health activism effectively combined with media and community activism helps to build communities and promote LGBTQ and community rights while at the same time educating the public. This chapter suggests that health issues are not simply individual problems that can be solved by medical, psychological, and psychiatric interventions; they are political and social issues that involve citizenship rights and societal support.

• Publication Date: Nov 21, 2019
• Deposit Date: Dec 10, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: May 22, 2021
• Pages: 188-204
• Book Title: Film and the Chinese Medical Humanities
• ISBN: 9781138580299
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/3526743
• Related Public URLs: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780429507465; https://www.crcpress.com/Film-and-the-Chinese-Medical-Humanities/Lo-Berry-Liping/p/book/9781138580299
• Additional Information: This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge/CRC Press in Film and the Chinese Medical Humanities on 6 December 2019, available online: http://www.crcpress.com/9781138580299