Oh thank goodness, we're not alone in this thought.
We've been trying to learn more about queerness in Chinese culture before European ideas moved in, and we recall reading somewhere that, at least for men, same-gender relationships were just thought of as something that some people chose to do. There wasn't a specific *identity* attached to it, a specific concept of an *innate* orientation.
Obviously this didn't mean things were all fine and dandy. Even before European influence, those relationships were just something that were *allowed* as long as the men in question also had respectable heteronormative relationships. We haven't read as much on queer women and trans people (beyond the Golden Orchid Society, which iirc was further on in history) but we're guessing they did not get even that. Still made us wonder how West-centered the LGBT+ label(s) are, though, and whether the idea of orientation itself is also, to a degree, a Western construct.
no subject
We've been trying to learn more about queerness in Chinese culture before European ideas moved in, and we recall reading somewhere that, at least for men, same-gender relationships were just thought of as something that some people chose to do. There wasn't a specific *identity* attached to it, a specific concept of an *innate* orientation.
Obviously this didn't mean things were all fine and dandy. Even before European influence, those relationships were just something that were *allowed* as long as the men in question also had respectable heteronormative relationships. We haven't read as much on queer women and trans people (beyond the Golden Orchid Society, which iirc was further on in history) but we're guessing they did not get even that. Still made us wonder how West-centered the LGBT+ label(s) are, though, and whether the idea of orientation itself is also, to a degree, a Western construct.