China Crackdown on LGBT Bans Rainbow Attire

 Beijing concert-goers say they were prevented from displaying rainbow imagery at a pop singer’s performance on Saturday, in a sign of increasing tightening on LGBTQ expression in China. 

Fans attending a concert by Taiwanese singer Chang Hui-mei — better known by her stage name A-Mei — say they were prevented from wearing shirts with rainbows on them inside the Cadillac Arena in Beijing, according to participants who posted about the incident on social media. 

 

A person who wrote about the concert on China’s Instagram-style Xiaohongshu service said a security guard at the venue asked them to turn his shirt inside out, as a rainbow had been drawn on the front. In another post, a person said they were stopped by security because their shirt changed colors based on reflective lighting. 

Kang Kang posted on Xiaohongshu that he was asked by security to change out of a shirt with a rainbow print into black clothing provided by guards. He told Bloomberg News that the security guards wouldn’t elaborate on why the T-shirt wasn’t allowed. 

Bloomberg News has reached out to those people for comment. A-Mei’s management, her Chinese concert organizer and the Cadillac Arena did not respond to requests for comment. An official at the Beijing Cultural and Tourism Bureau — which approved the weekend shows — said via phone that the bureau was only in charge of vetting the eligibility of the concert.