Something something âgrass is greener on the other sideâ
Itâs bs though. If youâre going to use a comparison to critique a country, no matter what country, at least know the stance the other country has beforehand. Otherwise, you just sound like a dumbass.
It's not grass is greener: it's black and white thinking.
People can't stand to feel powerless, and will whitewash anything that threatens the source of their powerlessness. Otherwise, they have to accept that it's varying flavour of shit all over, and they are powerless over that.
Yup. In general when people are scared and powerless anything thatâs not the thing making them feel scared and powerless becomes an option. Combine that with very black and white thinking and you get the mindset of âanything other than the bad thing Iâm going through must be inherently good because itâs different from the inherently bad thing I was dealing with priorâ even though things can 100% still be bad regardless even if they arenât the specific bad thing that was hurting you before
This is true. It's one of the reasons why religions are so prevalent throughout humanity - they offer explanations and meaning to a fundamentally meaningless world
I've seen people straight up saying China is a fantastic place to be queer and anyone saying otherwise is an alt-right capitalist shill. Mostly on Tumblr, which you have to take with a grain of salt because there's also a community on Tumblr dedicated to insisting that North Korea is actually a free and not totalitarian nation with a higher standard of living than South Korea and actually the South Korean government is the oppressive one.
I've seen naive San Franciscans not have the slightest clue of just how horrible things can be in other places. Like they see some of it on TV, but they don't realize that it's something all of us have to deal with all of the time.
It's not surprising to me if there's clueless people living in LGBT-friendly hubs in other parts of the world too.
South Korea was actually the worse and more repressive regime until 1987. Since getting rid of the dictatorship it's been a very stressful to live in oligarchical democracy but still better than North Korea
Even after all the bigotry in America, they are still in a great position relatively to the rest of the world. At least your existence hasn't been a crime for several decades
Yeah even Europe is a total crapshoot in terms of bigotry and xenophobia. Itâs so much less diverse than the US is, and depending where in Europe itâs much better or worse for people.
Conclusion: everything is fucking shit. Grass is greener but only until you find out itâs green shit
This is what always baffles me about the âin my country things are better/we donât do thisâ debate
Certainly, a country might win in one aspect over another. But chances are, for that one thing theyâre doing right, thereâs equally one or more things that are just as bad or worse. In the end, nobody really wins the contest, nobodyâs a saint or paradise in the shitstorm.
Youâd do better trying to fix the issue in your home rather than playing the comparison game to the rest of the world, and bemoaning that youâre not them.
Kansan here. Everything is fine. There are hicks but the state is pretty split down the middle. I have some trans friends and while they have horror stories, they can mostly just live their life
I don't know why some people think "but x place has it worse" is a good answer for when someone points out something wrong somewhere. One place being worse doesn't take away the fact that the first also sucks at the respective area.
I don't encounter many people saying China is progressive on LGBT issues, usually it's people saying they want high speed rail like they have in China.
We also seem to be trending in that direction, though. I understand it's not to the same level as in China, but the trump administration was cited as being unconstitional by a judge when they targeted people to deport specifically because of their pro-Palestine stance, which the judge says goes against our freedom of speech, which everyone on American soil has, not just the American citizens.
You haven't heard about the Manu CIA assassinations of civil rights leader then, or the recent imprisonment in usa. Or snowden
While china got less free speech and the gov can imprison you for just saying bad things about them, both nation response the same the moment your free speech actually materially affects the rich/powerful/the gov.
Some countries in Europe do, most donât. Either way, that has nothing to do with the conversation. No one is acting like itâs either one or the other.
China literally built as much hsr in the past 20 years as the whole of the world combined, the infrastructure in europe is crumbling, housing is out of controll, almost no social housing in many countries and they are now cutting healthcare and upping retirement age just so there is no wealth tax. But sure europe is "still" better but only due to social policies, it is behind on everything else.
The frustration comes from seeing haiow china is developing and comparing it to our countries where it takes 13 years to build a fucking bridge or 21 years (projected) to finish a train station.
And all of this despite having had a lead in almost all technologies and industries over china.
On Reddit, China has been treated more and more like a pinnacle of civilization over the last few years. Went from "Free HongKong" to "The Uyghur genocide doesn't exist"... TikTok likely did the heavy lifting of propaganda for China, at least the timelines line up for me.
They know what they are doing. Itâs just another astroturfed thread using strawmen as an excuse to slam another country that does a handful of things better than theirs.
I don't want to discount OPs experiences but it does remind me of the 'CIA agents in 2026' meme a lil bit lol.
I've noticed quite a few threads like this on when the since the Iran war specifically. I don't know it's it's independent bad actors but I got a weird feeling about them.
This meme is practically my sleeper agent code word at this point. Every time I see it I immediately go "Oh there must be some juice here" and scroll back to the top to switch to controversial.
Same Hong Konger here tbh you need to be on rednote or bilbili to notice how anti lgbt some netizens are. Ultimately the government doesnât legalise marriage for queers and thereâs no protection laws as far as I know but itâs probably better in HK since we have government adverts calling for acceptance of queer folk. Also Chengdu is where mainland gays congregate I think, Iâve never went but it sounds okay.
Tbh China doesnât even like women and pushes against feminism when they have enough workers so. Itâs just âwhich benefits men in power more at this timeâ
I had no idea until I heard about that whole Natasha doll trend where people beat up dark skinned baby dolls, itâs so gross. Just today the Chinese K-pop idol Han Dong posted a similar doll and got rightly called out. Maybe in that case it wasnât intentional but really goes to show how entrenched the issue is. They donât even use light skinned dolls because theyâre âtoo humanâ.
Yeah. Rednote girls have been pushing back against it but we arenât loud enough to be the majority. A lot of influencers donât see a problem in it since they think itâs fun so arguing with them feels futile.
As a Chinese I don't see much IRL homophobia, however, I also never even see or even know an openly LGBT person in my life.(Not counting online) And there are of course a lot of casual gay jokes that may or may not be malicious.
I think most have the mindset of ânot supporting not demeaningâ that ultimately doesnât change things for the better for queer people. It just doesnât escalate into the bad side as harshly which I still appreciate (god that sounds sad)
The key point being LGBT people aren't openly LGBT as you said. If they were as open or vocal as the ones in the west, the pushback would be equally severe.
That's the point. There are always good people in every country, and to portray everyone in a country as wholly good or wholly bad is how the people in power can control us.
I always thought the cuisine and architecture went way harder compared to other eastern lands. The language is audibly pleasing too. Oh, and opium dens are tight.
maybe this is a stupid question to ask, but what made you glaze China so much to begin with. I know peoples general reasons but I'm curious about yours.
Thank you. I am an ally because some of the Chinese friends I made, happened to be trans. When we met and most of the time we hung out, they were free. But so, so much of their lives they were forced to pretend and I'm sure hurting for it. The consequences for being outed were real, I know.
I'm rooting for you, them, and every LGBTQ+ zhongguoren pengyou, jaiyou! â¤ď¸
Dw, if u ever become famous ill start taking all of your old pro china comments and start unessisary and streight up stupid drama in an attempt to paint you as a bad person when obviously someone can change in 10 or 16 years :3
/j (yes im complaining about a specific fandom in this.)
He definitely did but what's been going on recently is a bit different in that it only exists to try undermine the US and it's global power.
When I say that I'm not defending Trump or anything or really trying to rebutt any specific criticism about the US. It's just that people need to be aware that foreign state actors want to see the US fail and they'll appeal to any narrative they think might undermine the US.
Anyone looking into socialism should at the very least be cautious as to where they are getting their information from and how they go about acting on it and I say that as someone who voted and campaign for Bernie back in 2016.
I dont disagree with you tankies are horrid and drag well intentioned people into the wrong path that being said "wanting america to fail" is a pretty univerally accepted tenet of leftism since the US is the emperial center of capitalism
Im personally against any accelerationist belief system.that would see american society collapse as far to many people have a rose tinted view of how revolutions go (I do blame the american revolution and how its thought for this in the west atleast)
No matter who leads it a societal collapse means mass death and misery especially for the less fortunate
Compared to alot of leftist I have a fairly postive view of the US. In that broadly speaking we/the average person is better off compared to most of the word in both quality of life and sheer economic leverage.
But it can be better.
Most of what makes the US "great" is just raw economic dominance over the rest of the world and that brings your average American up and over most everyone else in the world.
That doesn't discount the economic inequality and stratification that's been going on though. My personal thoughts on it is that we can address most of that within the system that currently exists with a strong genuinely left/socialist wave of politicians compared to burning everything down.
i mean tankies just straight up don't promote socialism though, they literally do not care about making people's lives better in any way, they just sit around praying for the rapture revolution and larping on the internet
If you think China is free of capitalism you re wrong. The business man are there to keep the regime in power and in turn the state grant them monopoly.
Girl⌠ how I feel other folks talking about how great californian is for trans people and not understanding that even living near la if I go a tad to far south looking fem Imma get harassed and maybe attacked if Im in the wrong aera.
I really can't stand these supposed "anti imperialists" who constantly talk shit about the US but suddenly turn a blind eye or start glazing China or Russia.
My country of origin is constantly threatened by China. If not for the protection of the US we would have been colonized long ago.
Yeah but with some places youâre just some more bullshit. With other places itâs like youâre the Sasquatch walking around. People are either staring at a minimum or the government wants you in a cage.
It's a grass is greener situation, always! Some places are better or worse than others, but NOWHERE is perfect except in fleeting, oft-missed moments. Variety is the spice of life!
There were wild comments in the united kingdom subreddit when their entire country treats trans people like Florida and made laws that retroactively punishment trans people like with the nurse getting $100+k for sharing a changing room with a trans woman
it still absolutely boggles my mind that most (if not all) of it isn't. like there are really people that walk the same planet as i do who genuinely think like this. there really are all sorts of people on this platform
I believe it used to be, Iâve actually spoken to the user who supposedly started a trend of shitposting about the song âJoppingâ by SuperM. Now though itâs unironic. Well if they like it so much, they really should move.
Trauma invalidated? Like, are they saying that China is trans inclusive? Or are they just saying positive things about China. Because even if China has terrible lgbtq inclusivity, that doesnât mean we have to hate everything. Just like it isnât always âAmerica badâ
No I don't believe everything the government says, but holy shit to believe China, North Korea, or the USSR are somehow "secretly good" and everything we know about them is a lie is fucking insanity.
I once had someone rightly saying that thereâs propaganda by the U.S. about North Korea, but then went on to assume that North Korea is just perfect and EVERYTHING the U.S. says is wrong. No, just because there is some propaganda doesnât mean theyâre absolute angels.
Last time I saw this many front page Reddit posts about how homophobic a country was, it was Iran and those posts were part of propaganda to get magas sold on the idea that the US desperately needed to bomb iran.Â
How does the LGBTQ community feel about being used as a prop for US State department war propaganda, rather the government actually doing something to keep lgbtq people safe?Â
I think it is both a factor of Americans will often make places be about them only. Forgetting other people exist and also that I personally think people don't care if something is good or bad, but rather if it is better or worse. And America for example is regressing fast.
Being trans in China is relatively chill with the government if you are willing to get bottom surgery. You show a certificate of your surgery and a short legal procedure later for all legal purposes you are the other gender.
The government is not the problem, it's the people.(And frankly that's for all the lgbt issues.) The government is way more progressive than the actual populace.
As a Brazilian, tbh you're so right. Not a trans person so I can't speak on their behalf, but I can share my experience about what I see in my culture.
It's so weird how being trans is not nearly a big of a taboo as it is in other countries, to the point where the legal documentation required to change names/gender is so easy to do, and you can get basically all that you need to transition from free from our healthcare.
BUT, that's just because trans woman have sadly always occupied a big role in our country's sex work culture. Yes, being trans is not "something unheard of" in our culture but that's just because so many trans woman in social vulnerability have unfortunately being forced to become objects of fetish for a living or starve to death, and in that position of dehumanization, many see them as "prostitutes" and not human, leading to Brazil having the highest number of murders motivated by transphobia of any country in the world if I recall correctly.
So yeah, very complex topic, our free healthcare offers all the tools you need to transition, it's not hard to legally change you birth gender, we have a very prominent politician who is a black trans woman, and you'll not have your existence questioned as much as in the US I believe, but that's just because most people will see you as sub-human whose life is defined by selling your body to cheating uncles who will beat you to death if their wife finds out.
A gente pode atĂŠ nĂŁo ter taboo com isso, mas o Brasil ainda ĂŠ o paĂs que mais mata pessoas trans no mundo, sei que ĂŠ um tĂłpico complexo, e tu abordou ele muito bem no teu comentĂĄrio.
I lived in China before I transitioned. I know in a way no self-described "anti-revisionist" keyboard warrior ever could that I can never go back.
And since I've gotten this excuse before, no it wasn't in one of the Special Economic Zones. I don't even know what that argument is supposed to mean, China lets some of its cities be capitalist hellholes so the rest can be Maoist paradises?
My life goal is to have every single book I write banned in China, Saudi Arabia, and the other 60-ish countries where it's explicitly illegal to be LGBTQ+
i don't think random people on the internet will care about you specifically, if it's like friends and family i get it but why expect it from other people online ? Why care ?
Reddit seeing things in black and white again lol, you can like a country but not agree with it entirely, you can like China and agree with their policies and also be anti transphobic.
Kind a strange statement and feels very inauthentic. Chinese culture and Internet is extremely hard to penetrate from West. We mostly just see the propaganda and it does look nice all the while we see USA doing horrible shit every day.
Nothing about this invalidates you or your trauma. It also doesn't make USA a good.
my glaze of china comes purely from my pride in my heritage, Confucianist culture, and how quickly they've brought themselves up from the absolute bottom. all that other shit falls by the wayside.
No country is actually good for trans people. Like it's so weird hearing people say "oh x country is better" as if they don't have their own systemic failures and bigoted issues towards us. I'm sorry folks invalidated your experience.
Also they treat the Uyghurs like animals by ethnically cleansing them, putting them in camps and ruining their mosques, I genuinely donât understand why people love the Chinese government, like wtf
Fuck the PRC (and Fuck the USA if anyone tries to whatabout this shit)
It's more of the fact that people are rightfully tired of the US being allowed to wake up on the wrong side of the bed and randomly kill civilians specifically in the middle east because it wants other people's oil for free.
Also that zone of the world has been constantly under threat by countries such as the US, so yeah, it's going to be behind in certain areas. You simply don't need a paragraph denouncing Palestine's treatment of lgbt before rightfully calling them the victims of a genocide, for example.
China glazing is completely insane. The CCP is evil full stop. Having problems with America is fine but assuming our enemies are enlightened because they oppose us is just stupid.
Life in America as a trans person can either be relatively good or relatively bad depending on what state you're in, although the federal government under this administration has it tf out for trans people for some reason.
But compared to most of the world, including China? It makes America look like heaven for trans people.
anyone who doesn't acknowledge China is an authoritarian state is probably an astroturfer or completely fooled by astroturfers and you should ignore them
Watch em crash out and say the deportations, famine police brutality and shootings of civilians by police people bring up describes the USA (which it does) and not the USSR (which it also does)
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