Between Desire and Derision: The Transnationalization of Queer Culture and Chinese Female Audiences’ Attitudes Toward Thai BL Drama

With the rapid growth of Thailand’s Boys’ Love industry, many Chinese female audiences have turned to Thai BL dramas to satisfy demands left unmet by the heavily censored domestic media. Adopting the framework of queer cultural transnationalization, we conducted a textual analysis to examine Chinese female audiences’ interests in and attitudes toward Thai BL. We analyzed discussion threads in Douban BL interest groups and found a paradox in which the audiences both embrace and criticize Thai BL, reflecting inter-Asian cultural and ideological tensions. While the audiences appreciated Thai BL as an alternative channel for exploring queerness and sexual liberalization, they also scrutinized Thai BL through a nationalist lens, criticized it as inferior to Chinese media, and engaged in a form of political consumerism. This paper provides insights into the intersections of nationality, gender, and sexuality in transnational media consumption and highlights the challenges that transnational queer culture faces in Asia.