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| Haitang Platform Targeted as LGBT Stories Face Tough Censorship in China |
China’s still going all out to stamp out LGBTQ fiction, with a fresh wave of arrests rattling its literary scene. Since the turn of the year, over 30 writers — most of them women in their twenties — have been taken in for questioning, accused of spreading “obscene” works through the boys’ love (BL) genre, or danmei as it’s known locally.
Their stories, largely published through Haitang Literature City — a huge online hub for BL fiction — have been flagged by authorities as breaching inappropriate content laws. But for many of these authors, writing danmei is far more than cheap thrills. It’s a creative escape from restrictive gender roles, and a space to explore identity, emotions, and relationships outside of rigid social norms.
Behind these flowery love stories, there’s a bigger fight about self-expression. Haitang has been home to a thriving women-led creative movement, where female authors can explore male characters’ vulnerability, affection, and even resistance to heteronormative stereotypes.
But the law’s hammer has come down hard. Some writers, sharing their ordeals anonymously on Weibo, described being interrogated, humiliated, and forced to hand over “illegal earnings” from their works. Shockingly, just 5,000 clicks on a piece of fiction is enough for the police to brand it “obscene dissemination” under current rules.
The hashtag #HaitangAuthorsArrested briefly went viral on Weibo before censors predictably wiped it clean. Many readers were furious, arguing that these stories are harmless and actually empower women to break away from conventional gender scripts. Activists and academics alike see danmei fiction as an important mirror for society — a way for people, especially young women, to voice their dreams beyond the traditional wife-and-mother script.
Meanwhile, fears keep growing. Loads of authors have gone silent, terrified of ending up behind bars. But some are refusing to back down, vowing to carry on writing no matter what. For them, LGBT fiction isn’t just a hobby, but a sanctuary to tell their truth and build community.
In the middle of all this, one BL drama, Revenged Love, has shot to insane popularity. Lead actors Zi Yu and Tian Xuning have been riding the wave, gaining over 800,000 and 910,000 new followers on Weibo respectively in just a week. Zi Yu’s post hit a whopping 480,000 likes, and together they smashed 1.1 million likes on Douyin within 24 hours.
But even that success triggered alarm bells.
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Weibo has since deleted the Revenged Love supertopic, while Douban yanked the show’s drama page altogether.
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Revenged Love wasn’t even released in mainland China, but that didn’t stop the censors from making a point — LGBT romance, especially with explicit overtones, remains firmly under the government’s watchful eye.
At the end of the day, this is more than a fight over a genre. It’s a cultural clash between a new generation craving freedom to imagine love differently, and an old system still desperate to keep things exactly as they’ve always been.