In early April 2020, the Beijing LGBT Center announced that it had been forced to terminate its operations due to a “lack of resources.”
The Beijing LGBT Center, which opened in November 2015, was the first LGBT community center in mainland China and the leading LGBT organization in the country. It was founded by several leading LGBT activists in the country, including Hu Zhijun, Chen Qiuyan, and Li Tingting, and sought to promote greater awareness and understanding of the LGBT community, as well as offer support and services to those in need.
The Beijing LGBT Center released an official statement on its Weibo page stating that “due to objective reasons such as personnel turnover and lack of effective operational maintenance, the operational and management of the platform has been temporarily suspended.”
The shutdown of the Beijing LGBT Center is a major disappointment to the LGBT community and to LGBT activists in China who hoped to create lasting change in their society. It is another example of the Chinese government’s continued repression of sexual minorities and the ongoing difficulty that activists in the country face in their efforts to achieve social acceptance.
