LGBT history in China

The history of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in China spans thousands of years. Unlike the histories of European and European-ruled polities in which Christianity formed the core of heavily-anti-LGBT laws until recent times, non-heterosexual states of being were historically treated with far less animosity in historic Chinese states. For a period of the modern history of both the Republic of China and People's Republic of China in the 20th century, LGBT people received more stringent legal regulations regarding their orientations, with restrictions being gradually eased by the beginning of the 21st century. However, activism for LGBT rights in both countries has been slow in development due to societal sentiment and government inaction.

Homosexuality has been documented in China since ancient times. The Intrigues of the Warring States, a collection of political advice and stories from before the Han dynasty, refers to Duke Xian of Jin (reigned 676–651 BCE) planting a handsome young man in a rival's court in order to influence the other ruler and to give him bad advice. The historian Han Fei recorded a more exalted example in the relationship of Mi Zixia (彌子瑕) and Duke Ling of Wei (衛靈公). Mizi Xia's sharing of an especially delicious peach with his lover was referenced by later writers as Yútáo, or "the leftover peach". Another example of homosexuality at the highest level of society from the Warring States period is the story of Lord Long Yang and the King of Wei.

Scholar Pan Guangdan (潘光旦) came to the conclusion that many emperors in the Han dynasty had one or more male sex partners. Many were recorded in detailed biographies in the Memoirs of the Historian by Sima Qian and the Records of the Han by Ban Gu. Grand Historian Sima Qian notes that, unlike female wives and concubines, the male companions of the emperors were often admired as much for their administrative abilities as for their sexual abilities:

The last of these emperors overlapped chronologically with "all but one" of the first fourteen Roman emperors held to be bisexual or exclusively homosexual by historian Edward Gibbon. The Han emperor most strongly devoted to his male companion was Emperor Ai, who "by nature...did not care for women", and who attempted to pass the throne on to his lover, Dongxian (董賢). The story of Emperor Ai which most struck later writers, however, was when the Emperor carefully cut off his sleeve, so as not to awake Dongxian, who had fallen asleep on top of it. The cut sleeve was imitated by many people at court and became known as Duànxiù, or "breaking the sleeve". This phrase was linked with the earlier story of Mizi Xia's bitten peach to create the formulaic expression yútáo duànxiù (余桃断袖) to refer to homosexuality in general.

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