The LGBT movers and shakers shaping Shanghai right now

Currently celebrating the ninth edition of ShanghaiPRIDE, there's no doubt Shanghai's LGBTQI scene has come a long way, baby. In looking at what it means to be queer in Shanghai right this very second, we surveyed the scene – drag kings, writers, activists and more – to come up with a list of people who are shaping what it means to be queer in Shanghai. Cheers, all.

Ennis F.W. Drag King extraordinaire

While Shanghai’s drag queens may be ten-a-penny, their female-to-male counterparts are far more difficult to come by. Cue Ennis F.W., the city’s foremost drag king who has performed his ‘glamdrogynous’ brand of gender-bending boy-drag on Shanghai’s nightlife circuit since his debut in 2014. Beginning a theatre career at 15 years old and eventually graduating with honours from De Paul University of Chicago, Ennis later developed a passion for ‘kinging’ – the performance of masculinity by women (think drag queens and invert it). Not only did kinging allow Ennis to step into another persona, it allowed him to combine a variety of artistic media, ranging from acting and costuming to music and dance. Aside from owning the stage at events across the city including Ladyfest, ShanghaiPRIDE, and Pride’s Got Talent, Ennis co-produces The Pearl’s hit seasonal show Qi-POW! Burlesque and Cabaret with international drag act Anna Fur Laxis and co-created The House of TBD in collaboration with drag sisters Miss Jade, Mint and Honey West. ‘Drag is a form of entertainment that has universal appeal,’ Ennis says, ‘but drag kinging was created by and for queer women. Kinging is still struggling for visibility and recognition but we would love to see our performances included in variety drag shows, not just events pigeon-holed for lesbian women.’

Charlene Liu Co-founder of ShanghaiPRIDE

Shanghai veteran and community power-queer Charlene Liu is one of the scene’s enduring figures. Since her arrival in Shanghai, Liu has pumped countless hours of hard work into building an LGBTQI scene from the ground up. In 2009, Charlene co-founded ShanghaiPRIDE with seven friends, not expecting the festival to rocket to popularity as quickly as it did. It was the first international-style Pride festival of its kind in China, and offered 2,000 attendees the chance to celebrate their identities with parties, socials, talks and events. Since its establishment, ShanghaiPRIDE has grown exponentially, forging links with international queer communities and serving an increasingly visible queer community in Shanghai and further afield. ‘I really believe that in my lifetime I’ll see change happen in China, it was only 1997 that homosexuality was decriminalised and 2001 that it was removed from the official list of mental health illnesses,’ Liu says, citing PRIDE as just one key example of how acceptance and visibility can grow within a generation. While holding down her nine-to-five and orchestrating ShanghaiPRIDE, Liu also organises community events for ShanghaiLGBT and Lesinshanghai, as well as tech industry-focused Ladies Who Tech and the annual Red Ribbon Gala Dinner in honour of World Aids Day. Starry-eyed? Yeah, so are we.

Matthew Barren and Will Dai Founders of the CINEMQ film collective

This fabulous power-couple is the driving force behind CINEMQ, a queer film collective that offers monthly themed short-film screenings and parties at bars and clubs across the city as well as brand-spanking new web and WeChat platforms that focus on queer Cinema and Chinese screen culture. CINEMQ has proven to be a key-player for those looking for a clued-up, diverse queer culture in Shanghai, distinct from the city’s mainstream queer scene that continues to march to the beat of growing commercialisation. The collective’s film screenings showcase a homemade cinematic ‘mix-tape’ with a distinct thematic thread, conceptualised and stitched together by the CINEMQ team. While each experimental mix-tape casts a spotlight on independent cinema and under-represented queer film-makers and video artists, CINEMQ pulls from a wide range of sources to mix and match visuals in order to highlight or challenge a central concept. Collaborating with a team of DJs, designers and freelance writers, much of the collective’s event planning, content writing and editing, and video work happens in house at the super-relaxed CINEMQ HQ – the Barren-Dai living room, complete with photography apparatus, keyboard, ambience-lifting fairy lights and a life-size cardboard cutout of Beyoncé Knowles.

Follow CINEMQ on WeChat for articles and event information.

Ting Ting Liang Co-owner of Roxie

Netherlands-native Ting Ting Liang is one of the pioneers of Shanghai's queer community and alternative nightlife spaces. After moving to China after graduation in 2010, Liang transformed the women’s queer scene overnight with the founding of Roxie, Shanghai’s one and only lesbian bar. After a few years partying on Shanghai's queer circuit, Liang decided it was time to create a space first and foremost for queer women with a serious focus on good drinks. Roxie is a safe, versatile space for the LBT community, established to give women a place to hang out in comfort everyday of the week. Best of all, aside from regular weekly event offerings, Liang offers up the bar as an event space to host a range of community events, including drag king parties, film screenings, discussion groups and more. ‘I really felt that girls needed a place to feel comfortable, enjoy themselves and even to hook-up if they want to,’ Liang says with a smile. ‘I try to make Roxie open to anyone – straight or queer. That’s the way to build a community.’

Follow roxieshanghai on WeChat to keep updated with events and deals.

Tom Streppel Co-organiser at Open Doors

Dutch teacher by day and event organiser by night, Tom Streppel has worked hard toward injecting harmony into the Shanghai queer scene since picking up the gauntlet of grassroots community Open Doors since 2015. Originally founded in Arizona, Open Doors was transported to China by founder AJ Shainker as a way to building a strong community for queer individuals and their straight allies. The organisation now boasts three branches in Shanghai, Beijing and Hangzhou. Offering fun, wholesome alternatives to regular body pumping, booze-fuelled LGBT events, Streppel has organised everything from casual movie nights and vegan buffets to sunny park chill-out sessions and board game parties. For Streppel, Open Doors allows LGBTQI individuals a chance to socialise away from bars and clubs. It encourages participants to create a network of like-minded individuals where friendships can be made in a comfortable and natural environment. ‘Socialising in the gay scene encourages me to be something I’m not. Open Doors gives me the opportunity to get to know people in a more natural way,’ Tom says, noting that his community group is an awesome way to meet new people while getting acquainted with a sometimes very overwhelming city.

Jack Chan King of the Queer Scene

Undoubtedly one of the leading figures in Shanghai’s queer scene, Jack Chan has built a glitter-fuelled empire of LGBTQI friendly spaces in the city’s up-and-coming gay-bourhood in east Changning. Chan is not only the owner of Lucca 390 – one of Shanghai’s most successful gay clubs – but also the more laid-back Happiness 42, kitschy British-themed bar Telephone 6 (complete with private rooms and cheeky glory holes), daytime hotspot M CAFÉ and a successful gay sauna. Originally from China’s southern Guangdong province, Chan moved to Shanghai to make it big as an entrepreneur, not realising that he would have such a formative impact of the city’s LGBTQI scene. Chan opened much-missed underground art and hangout joint Shanghai Studio in 2005 which, along with legendary graveyard venue Eddie’s Bar, helped to put Shanghai’s emerging LGBTQI scene on the map. Chan has hosted countless events ranging from PRIDE parties and charitable fundraisers to open-mic nights and drag shows, offering his spaces and services free-of-charge to the community. Now on the agenda? M CAFÉ (right next door to Lucca) is hosting rainbow block parties with DJ sets, food, drinks deals and much more.

Follow luccalounge on WeChat for event updates and more.

Jinghua Qian Deputy Head of Features at SixthTone

When it comes to queer-spiration, it doesn’t get as motivational as Jinghua Qian’s dedication to journalism, activism and the arts. With a strong focus on issues of sexuality, social justice, identity, gender, race and more, Qian – a non-binary-gendered person who goes by the pronoun ‘they’ – has built a strong and promising career as hard-hitting wordsmith. Besides writing for literary quarterly Overland and Asian-Australian arts and culture magazine Peril in their adoptive-home of Melbourne, Qian co-founded trans and gender-diverse arts collective Myriad, hosted LGBTQI focused radio show Queering the Air and still found the time to support activist causes – think placards and protests against unjust deportations. Qian returned to their native Shanghai in 2016 to join the team as a reporter for Sixth Tone – an innovative, forward-thinking state-sponsored bilingual media platform. Now Deputy Head of Features, Qian is able to shape the direction of the platform by diversifying the coverage of China’s social issues. ‘If overall purpose is to tell great stories with sincerity and resonance, to present a more multifaceted representation of the societies I live in and to push discourse deeper, then I am open to whatever direction my career takes me in,’ Qian says with an eye to the future.

Follow sixthtone on WeChat to keep updated with Qian’s work.

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