China Bans Rainbow Clothes At Pop Concert In Apparent LGBTQ+ Crackdown

Beijing concert-goers say they were prevented from displaying rainbow imagery at a pop singer’s performance on Saturday, in a sign of increasing tightening on LGBTQ+ expression in China. Fans attending a concert by Taiwanese singer Chang Hui-mei — better known by her stage name A-Mei — say they were prevented from wearing shirts with rainbows on them inside the Cadillac Arena in Beijing. A person who wrote about the concert on China’s Instagram-style social media platform said a security guard at the venue asked them to turn his shirt inside out, as a rainbow had been drawn on the front. In another post, a person said they were stopped by security because their shirt changed colors based on reflective lighting. A fan named Kang Kang posted that he was asked by security to change out of a shirt with a rainbow print into black clothing provided by guards. He told Bloomberg News that the security guards wouldn’t elaborate on why the T-shirt wasn’t allowed. A-Mei’s management, her Chinese concert organizer, and the Cadillac Arena did not respond to requests for comment by Bloomberg. An official at the Beijing Cultural and Tourism Bureau — which approved the weekend shows — told the Newhouse via phone that the bureau was only in charge of vetting the eligibility of the concert organizers.