Queer Manifestos: Editorials from Chinese Queer Zines

Since the late 1990s, even amid continuing media censorship and sporadic government crackdowns on LGBTQIA+ activism, there has been a boom in queer groups, organisations, and events in urban China. Self-published queer zines, the Chinese queer version of samizdat, have catalogued the rise and fall of these queer communities and cultures. They have also functioned as a vital form of queer activism, constructing Chinese queer identities, and building Chinese queer communities in significant ways. By 2025, most of the queer zines stopped printing, except for GS, which continues to champion the work of Chinese queer writers. For instance, recent GS publications include a poetry collection by queer poet Mu Cao, in 2022, and a collection of short stories by queer fiction writer Zhang Wang, in 2024. For various reasons, the print versions of these zines can no longer be found in public spaces; their social media accounts have either gone dormant or been shut down. In this context, preserving these zines, together with the queer historical material and cultural memories they represent, is an urgent task.