As a result of an individual petition, the Supreme Court in China has issued a statement clarifying the application of laws protecting minorities in China and their validity in cases of discriminatory speech on issues of sexuality, gender identity and gender expression. This statement includes guidelines on judgements and a clear explanation of how the law applies.
To implement the provisions of laws such as the Constitution, the Civil Code, and the Employment Promotion Law, and to effectively safeguard citizens’ personal dignity against infringement, the Supreme People’s Court hereby clarifies the following adjudication rules:
First, regarding cases involving the public insult or defamation of an individual’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, people’s courts generally deem such acts to constitute an infringement of general personality rights; they order the cessation of the infringement, a formal apology, and compensation for emotional distress, thereby explicitly establishing the illegality of discriminatory speech and conduct based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.
Second, in the contexts of recruitment, hiring, job reassignment, or dismissal, should an employer engage in differential treatment on the grounds of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, people’s courts shall, in accordance with the law, determine that the employer has committed employment discrimination; they shall order the revocation of the relevant decisions, compensation for losses, and other remedies, thereby explicitly prohibiting unreasonable discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression within the sphere of employment.
Third, should a school impose inappropriate disciplinary measures against students—or fail to fulfill its administrative duties, thereby leading to campus bullying—on the grounds of the students’ sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, people’s courts shall, in accordance with the law, hold the school liable, thereby reinforcing schools’ obligation to protect students’ personal liberty and dignity. These cases collectively demonstrate the people’s courts’ unequivocal stance: that the legitimate rights and interests of sexual minorities are entitled to equal protection under the law, and that any unreasonable discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression is strictly prohibited by law.
…
Moving forward, we will continue to systematically review cases nationwide involving the protection of sexual minorities’ rights and interests, summarize adjudication rules, and standardize adjudication criteria. At appropriate junctures, we will formalize established adjudication rules through various mechanisms—such as judicial interpretations, conference minutes, guiding cases, reference cases, and exemplary cases—to enhance the provision of legal norms. Furthermore, we will incorporate topics such as the protection of personality rights into judicial training programs, thereby ensuring the protection of citizens’ personal liberty and dignity in accordance with the law.” — Reply to the “Proposal on the Application of Law to Explicitly Prohibit Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in Judicial Adjudication”
China W.
Hopefully this continues and China reaches Cuban levels of social progress, and hopefully we all advance further and further beyond that.
we’re only 10 years out from anti-China propaganda in the US being about how they’re a completely genderless society where no one is allowed to use gendered pronouns
It really does feel that way. The general rule that social progress accelerates alongside independence and economic progress continues to play out. What I find unfortunate is that the majority of liberals today will likely begin to support the China of 2035-2050, while failing to recognize that the China of 2035-2050 is being built today, and has been built since 1949. It’s the trappings of metaphysics. Trying to explain this dialectical process to liberals is difficult, but rewarding when it clicks.
Xi Jinping? More like They Jinping
“HE” AND “SHE” SOUND EXACTLY THE SAME!!!1! IT’S TOTAL GENDER MADNESS, YOU CAN ONLY TELL THEM APART WRITTEN DOWN!!!
https://xcancel.com/amber_digit2/status/2056872457014009922#m
explanation: this document is an online reply to a specific complaint regarding conversion therapy against trans and queer people. it is not an official court ruling, has no legislative power, cannot be cited in legal cases, and is meant to dismiss the original complaint. while it is indeed the first time the court explicitly mentions the illegality of discrimination based on gender & sexuality, there is still much more to be done for it to bear any legal weight
important context. still great sign of progress but important not to over-exaggerate victories
I feel that this is still very good. With it coming from the research office of the supreme people’s court it is clearly the essential belief of the highest court.
That doesn’t mean that all judges will interpret the law as they want them to, but it does mean that this is how they believe the law is laid out and also how they want it to be applied.
From that base the push for tweaks and changes that actually result in this being the consistent outcome of cases can intensify. Citing examples where the law is clearly not being applied in that way can further the push towards achieving the desired outcome.
I see it as very good to have this out in the open. It will embolden efforts.
Is it out in the open?
China says trans rights?
China says harmonious society
Meanwhile, the USA has literally published a “counterterrorist” strategy where they will “prioritize the rapid identification and neutralization of violent secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-transgender, and anarchist.”
I gotta learn Chinese, fuck the west, China is the future
I’ve already started. I only wish i started a decade ago.
It’s the present. We are firmly in the Chinese century now. Believe it.
China went woke!
Common China W tbh
Full text of https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/U1VX7omSTbnMjpoBTHIt-A text translated by firefox:
spoiler
The Supreme Court’s letter is encouraging.
[The Original] Multi-world harmony
Neutral Rainbow said
18 May 2026 01:42
Rare answer of the Supreme Court! Regarding the protection of the rights of sexual minorities, there are big changes in this letter.
(In May 2026, a reply from the Supreme People’s Court to a letter was quietly circulated in the circles of China’s sexual minorities.
This is no ordinary reply. It comes from the Research Office of the Supreme People’s Court, and the date of payment is May 8, 2026. In the letter, the Supreme Law not only responded positively to citizens’ suggestions on the principle of “explicit prohibition of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in judicial trials”, but also systematically sorted out the three major breakthroughs in the protection of the rights and interests of sexual minorities in Chinese courts in recent years, and clearly stated that any unreasonable discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression is prohibited by law.
This is a belated but heavy weight of the “reassurance pill”. It clearly outlines the three solid defense lines for the protection of the rights and interests of sexual minorities in China’s judicial practice.
From “sickness” to “people”: the first line of defense for the protection of personality rights
The letter first recalled the landmark “Chinese gay correction treatment” case. In this case, the effective decision clearly stated: “Homosexuality is not a mental illness”.
This sentence breaks the long-term stigma and shackles. Its significance goes far beyond the success of the case, but at the judicial level: sexual orientation, not disease, but one of the normal sexual orientation of human beings. Therefore, any electric shock, hypnosis and aversion therapy in the name of “treatment” are not only ineffective, but also a serious violation of the human dignity of citizens.
The court’s judgment is clear: in cases of public insulting and slandering others’ sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression, they are generally considered to constitute infringement of general personality rights, and orders to stop the infringement, make amends for apologies, and compensate for moral damage. This means that the law will protect everyone from public humiliation and assault on their own identity.
Refusal to discriminate: judicial red lines of employment discrimination
The second type of typical case mentioned in the letter is the first transgender employment discrimination case in China. For the first time in the case, the concepts of “gender identity” and “gender expression” emerged.
The party in the case was employed by the company without understanding because he was wearing clothing that matches his gender identity. The court finally found that the employer applied differential treatment on the grounds of sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression, which constituted employment discrimination, and decided to revoke the relevant decision and compensate for the loss.
The significance of this decision is that it extends the protection of equal employment rights from traditional gender discrimination to deeper gender identity and expression. It sends a clear signal to all employers that your bias cannot be a reason to deprive others of their job opportunities.
Third, to protect campus security: the judicial bottom of the student’s right to life
The third type of case mentioned in the letter is that the school has failed to perform bullying in schools due to improper punishment of students’ sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, etc., or failure to perform management duties, and the court has ordered the school to be responsible according to law.
In the case of Zhang and a school education institution liability dispute in Hefei, the court decided that because the school did not take appropriate psychological intervention for gay students with suicidal tendencies, it simply asked parents to bring it back and ordered the school to bear 30% of the liability.
This judgment is a wake-up call for all schools: in the face of sexual minorities, the responsibility of the school is not to “correct” or “avoid”, but to provide a safe and inclusive learning environment to protect their personal freedom and human dignity. Any form of bullying in schools, as well as school inaction, will face legal accountability.
More importantly, the future planning in the letter.
The value of this reply is not only to review past jurisprudence, but also to clarify the direction of the future.
The letter reads: “In the next step, we will continue to sort out the cases involving the protection of the rights and interests of sexual minorities in the national courts, summarize the rules of the judgment, and unify the standards of the judgment; clarify the mature judgment rules through judicial interpretation, meeting minutes, guiding cases, etc. in a timely manner, and strengthen the provision of rules; incorporate the protection of personality rights into the training of judges.”
This means that the Supreme Court is preparing to translate these scattered, ground-breaking case experiences into systematic, nationally unified judicial rules. In the future, the trial of similar cases will no longer rely on the enlightenment of individual judges, but there are clear rules to follow.
Write to everyone in trouble.
Many times, change does not happen overnight. It is like this reply, not a earth-shattering declaration, but a sincere step for the judicial system to listen to public opinion and respond to demands.
From the end of “corrective treatment”, to the prohibition of employment discrimination, to the accountability of bullying in schools, the law is building a protective net for every minority citizen. This net may not be close enough, but it is becoming more and more solid.
If you or someone around you is experiencing injustice, remember that you are not alone. These cases, this letter, are the most powerful weapons in your defense.
Equality is never the charity of others, but our rights. The law is becoming our strongest support. Come out for help, please contact a great partner (has helped 500,000+)
Converge the stars with a glimmer, light up the rainbow with goodwill, thank you for the warm heart.
Is this legitimate?
In May 2026, a reply from the Supreme People’s Court to a letter was quietly circulated in the circles of China’s sexual minorities
Is it a normal way for any court to do business?
The general content is quite confusing. Are they making law or enforcing law? Brief research tells me that unlike the tiny SC of (say) the US, the Chinese SC has a few hundred judges, so obviously they are doing things a bit differently. I also see something about issuing guidance generally or in specific cases. The text is attributed to the Research Office. It would make more sense to be quietly circulating a letter advising that they would embark upon research, maybe asking for feedback (which this is not). rather than asserting what the future rulings and declarations will be (which this is).
The OP text says “the Supreme People’s Court hereby clarifies the following adjudication rules” but why would you only tell LGBT people about that? Wouldn’t you want to tell the legal community, at least?
Possibly something is lost in translation?
I also poked around a bit on the SPC website which is quite navigable using firefox translation. There are a lot of text-as-images but if you hover your mouse over them they have link titles (or alt tags) that do get translated. They also maintain an english website but I wouldn’t expect it to be as comprehensive or up to date.
The qq link seems to be dead, the account which posted the article has been banned.
Interesting, I have no explanation. Maybe it’s not rea? Or maybe it’s an overreaction by censors?
The link now says
This page cannot be found.
In response to the relevant complaint, this account is suspected of violating the “Internet user public account information service management regulations”, viewDetails
The title of the linked page translates to “Internet users public account information service management provisions_Central Network Security and Information Committee Office” and is basically an acceptable use agreement.
The content of the page appears to be republished identical at this link shared in the news mega.
Also, I find in the the “Related” section of the above CDT this: [404 Library] Excellent Partner | A letter of recommendation from a graduate student with a sexual minority, received an official reply from the Supreme Law Research Office which begins:
CDT editor’s note: The original text has been deleted, and CDT has been transferred from “Ding Sheng China Forum”.
At Ding Sheng China Forum, some people are saying the above is a lie or rumor but I lack the contextuals to guess who is telling the truth, or who even has access to correct information.
And @Awoo@hexbear.net as it is your thread
That link is very useful. The site, owner and its purpose is sus af though if you look into who owns it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiao_Qiang
lol that is a comically evil biography. I will keep in mind. But in this case, the content is a word for word mirror of your own posted link. I still can’t tell if there is any reason to believe in the legitimacy of this story or not. Is it a chain letter fantasy or something more substantial? is there any other source? Is the account Neutral Rainbow known?
By some measures, being picked up by some VOA-ass news blog might even cast more doubt on the OP. If the main meat of the Neutral Rainbow’s post regarding plans by the SPC is true, then it is some kind of error or internal conflict leading to the post being deleted. (Assuming that the account wasn’t engaged in something else that led to the deletion of all their posts.) But at the end of the day, SPC is stronger than ye power tripping mods of qq.com (especially in the authoritarian 1984-like hellscape that is PRC according to Qiang), so the progress of LGBTQ people is assured. Is that really the kind of news this site is interested in? Now that it is deleted, the story can be told as “Chinese censors remove account and posts advocating for gay and trans people’s human rights”.
But in this case, the content is a word for word mirror of your own posted link
Yep. I translated and read it before posting, it’s certainly the same as it was.
If the main meat of the Neutral Rainbow’s post regarding plans by the SPC is true
Right. I was chatting about this with a friend and we came up with two possibilities:
- That it’s anti-lgbt censorship to prevent progress on lgbt issues.
- That it’s censorship intended to prevent a negative reaction to progress on lgbt issues.
We came up with the second possibility when discussing how trans issues have absolutely blown up and the focus on trans people has set back progress. If trans issues had stayed in the background where people didn’t care about them then trans issues would have simply continued to see progress and improvements. Instead they got weaponised by the right to motivate and galvanise reactionaries.
The censor in China is a black box. We can ultimately only completely speculate upon the whys of anything they do. There are no answers. But one thing that leans me towards possibility two over possibility one is that these issues have seen nothing but progress in China, there have been no setbacks, it has only marched forwards. Does that sound consistent with a state that is actively suppressing progress? It doesn’t to me. Russia is quite clearly actively suppressing progress but China’s results do not seem consistent in comparison. So the second possibility that they censor things for the purpose of preventing reaction seems quite plausible to me.
Ultimately we can not know one way or another, and if these were the reasons for the action taken they would certainly never say so as it would undermine it.
so forgetting about the post being deleted, do you have reason to believe it was true in the first place?
Only that it looked fairly legit and Chinese friends said it was worded the way you would expect it to be. If it was fake then it was exceptional.
Like imagine someone writing a supreme court statement for the US, there would be some weird things that stand out about it if it wasn’t written completely flawlessly. I couldn’t find anyone that could fault it.
And if it was fake and yet got significant traction online, why not officially say it was not a real reply made by them?
After I thought a few more, I decided the idea of this being a plan to sort things out for LGBTQ people without attracting attention is illogical. It would be possible to apply this strategy when the activities were taking out of view and without much participation of the general population. For example, having decent healthcare available, nobody need really notice it.
But the point of laws is to modify behavior. You cannot secretly, quietly change how laws are enforced. Nobody will know about the new law, or the new interpretation, so how can they comply? It doesn’t make any sense.
Instead they got weaponised by the right to motivate and galvanise reactionaries.
Furthermore, I don’t think the discord about these things is just a forgone outcome of them having a natural small degree of publicity. It is due to the intentional agitation of bigots, very well funded and connected by agents of capital. Using it as they do requires constant care and attention from these people.
You have kind of cooked up a sort of “trust the plan”-type positive conspiracy theory tbh.
Only that it looked fairly legit and Chinese friends said it was worded the way you would expect it to be. If it was fake then it was exceptional.
Legal documents use standardized format and language, so that they may be clearly understood by anyone with the required expertise. There is no reason to think any kind of legal document should be difficult to forge, in terms of the wording. Any lawyer framiliar with the appropriate area of law could mock up a statement to say pretty much anything. Really just a grasp of formal writing is required. What is so exceptional about this? Are your friends in regular secret communication with the chinese courts? Maybe they do have a special way of writing which is not obvious in translation.
But for me, just looking on their website, I find a few sample documents of the sort to compare. I chose just based on topics that I thought wouldn’t be overly technical, in the sections that seem to be potential
- Interpretation of the Supreme People’s Court on the Application of Punitive Compensation in Cases of Civil Disputes Concerning the Trial of Intellectual Property Rights
- Reply of the Supreme People’s Court on the Application of the Law on the Application Conditions for the Advance Payment of the Basic Medical Insurance Fund
- Reply of the Supreme People’s Court on the criteria for calculating interest on overdue payments in foreign currency and Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan currencies
- Supreme People’s Court Issues Guidelines for the Trial of Civil Cases involving Minors
Here are things I notice that make them look like very usual legal documents from any country:
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published on the website of the relevant court
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dates: on which become effective; publication; when meetings were conducted
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referencing prior relevant document dates for reference
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authors
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attributed to SPC
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attributed to subordinate body, e.g. “Press Bureau of the Supreme People’s Court”, district etc
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individual people, e.g. at the bottom see “Responsibilities Editor”
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citations throughout to specific laws generally as well as the particular portions, e.g:
Article 24 In the case of a guardian who disposes of the property of minors, the provisions of Article 35, paragraph 1, of the Civil Code and Article 16 and 17 of the Law on the Protection of Minors shall be accurately applied
- describe who is responsible for doing what:
When the insured person applies to the social insurance agency of the insured place in writing to pay the first payment, he shall inform the cause of the injury caused by the injury and the third party does not pay the medical expenses or cannot determine the third party’s situation. After the social insurance agency reviews according to law, it shall pay the corresponding part of the medical expenses in accordance with the provisions of the basic medical insurance fund in the coordinated area.
- describes common conflicts that can occur and how to think about them fairly according to the law
Article 5 Where the plaintiff requests punitive damages for the defendant’s intentional infringement of unfair competition other than trade secrets, the people’s court will not support it, except as otherwise provided in the law.
- Structured with sections, articles, chapters, subsections. Things are numbered so they can be referred to.
But the main thing is the improbability of basic claim that something called “Research Office” would be in a position to secretly make promises of sweeping changes to interpretation of existing legislation. Very strange and unwieldy way to conduct a legal system suggesting an unstable jurisprudence.
And if it was fake and yet got significant traction online, why not officially say it was not a real reply made by them?
I think this question is better posed in the inverse. If it was real, why not officially take responsibility. Very sneaky of them. As to why not refute a forgery, has anybody asked them? has any publication except that VOA-ass one covered it? Are they even aware of it? I wouldn’t expect even a small municipal government to issue a formal reply to every joke or hoax posted on social media. That is silly.
All I am asking is if there is any reason to believe this is real but all there is is baking. The original claim was that this was widely circulated among queer activists. So have others acknowledged they got it as well? Or is just this one random account still.
