Tu’er Shen: the Rabbit God gives hope.

[afleitch]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/07/how-a-rabbit-god-became-an-icon-for-taiwans-gay-community

'During a quiet mid-week afternoon on the eighth floor of an office building, A-wei is meditatively separating flower petals to make an offering to Tu’er Shen the rabbit god, a spiritual guardian of LGBTQI people.

The small Taoist temple where 24-year-old A-wei sits is a humble room with views across New Taipei city, made cosy by the smell of incense and the mews of two noisy cats...

“In other temples a common thing is the master will tell you what to do, but this place is different. They listen to me like a friend, without religious pressure.” '

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Quite lovely. There's a great deal of work I think, that needs to be done on queer spirituality, particularly in non-western post-Christian nations.

But broader than that; an overlapping article about 'danmei';

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/13/chinas-rotten-girls-are-escaping-into-erotic-fiction-about-gay-men

Refuge and liberation for otherwise straight women in China through queer fiction (and I know a lot of the genre will often play with similar allegories found in the story of Tu'er Shen)

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I have some indirect familiarity with this milieu and might have more to say about it later, but for now I'd just like to say that this is a fascinating article and thank you for posting it, Andrew.

[支持核绿派 (Greens4Nuclear)]

Mildly surprised to see this discussed here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu%27er_Shen

"Taiwan's relative acceptance of LGBT apparently has roots to a Taoist deity for gay love whose worship began in the part of China that colonized Taiwan during the Qing Dynasty, when said colonization took place"


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_China#History

In Ancient Fujian, the region had developed a sexual culture isolated from that of the rest of the Chinese empire. During the Qing Dynasty, the local population began worshipping a Taoist deity known Tu Er Shen, who served as the guardian of same-sex love.[22] The deity was originally a human by the name of Hu Tianbao.[23] Hu was executed after having been caught peeping on a nobleman he had become attracted to. He was originally destined to go to hell, but the guardians of the spirit realm took pity on him, as his crime was committed out of love.[24] He was then appointed as the guardian of same-sex love.

The Central Qing government of Beijing labeled followers of Tu Er Shen “cultists” and demanded for their persecution and elimination.[25] It was during this dynasty that China's very first law against non-commercial same-sex sexual conduct was enacted. However, the newly created offense of homosexuality carried the most lenient penalty possible in the Qing legal system.[26]Today, the temple of Tu Er Shen, located in New Taipei, serves as the world's only religious temple dedicated exclusively to same-sex love.[27]