Thumbnail
Thumbnail is from the Bohemian Rhapsody movie where multiple scenes depicting same sex relations were removed by the Chinese government
Their historic figures and modern anti-Western states they so vehemently defend all have abysmal, actively hostile records and attitudes regarding LGBTQ+ rights and representation, with prosecution and state-sanctioned execution.
Their modern "anti-imperialist" states, which they frequently defend and look up to as bastions of their takes, are all steeped in state-sanctioned homophobia and illegality of queer identities.
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China: The government systematically censors LGBTQ+ representation in media (check the thumbnail spoiler above) and shuts down queer NGOs, framing them as "foreign influences." Same-sex couples are denied legal recognition, marriage, and adoption rights. The government actively censors people who openly discuss and advocate for the lack of rights and recognition for LGBTQ+ communities, not even allowing depictions of gay relationships in their media.
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Russia: The State has explicitly outlawed the "international LGBT movement" by classifying it as an extremist organisation. Expressing queer identity publicly or portraying it positively in media is illegal and heavily penalised. There are gay people who are beaten in the street who dare hold hands with each other, afforded no protection or rights. They don't allow marriage or gender identity.
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Iran and Hamas: Here the situation is lethal, where under these regimes, homosexuality is criminalised and punishable by imprisonment, torture and even state-sanctioned executions.
Then you have Marxist-Leninist figures, the architects and leaders, who were just as hostile to queer identity and LGBTQ people, calling being gay a Western deviancy and sending them to camps or killing them.
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You have Stalin, who reversed the decriminalisation of homosexuality after the revolution, recriminalising it and calling it a symptom of bourgeois decadence and fascist depravity, where if you were openly gay, you were at risk of being sent to gulags or killed.
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Mao Zedong heavily persecuted homosexuality during the Cultural Revolution, wherein later the State punished gay individuals under vague criminal charges of hooliganism and treating homosexuality as a mental illness by Western Capitalism.
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Fidel Castro, of course, said that "a homosexual cannot be a revolutionary." And his government subsequently rounded up gay men to send them to labour camps, and otherwise viewed queer identities as unfit for socialist society.
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Friedrich Engels mocked homosexual rights, calling its subjects "extremely against nature" and dismissing gay rights as "turning smut into theory." Marx received and circulated the letter without objection.
And then you have something much more local: Lemmy Developer, Nutomic, with their own moment: "The transgender topic is clearly promoted by the bourgeoisie, going as far as putting lgbt flags on government buildings, or allowing biological men to compete in women's sports at the Olympics."
Given all this, why would any queer person align themselves with an ideology whose foundational leaders persecuted them, and whose modern bastions or allies actively seek to erase them?
Note: This post is not defending Capitalism, or attacking Communism.

True, but the argument isn’t necessarily for them (although some have spoken of arguments starting cracks in their thinking that developed into them breaking out of the mindset years later). It’s for other people reading them.
There are, unfortunately, too many people who blindly believe what they see online, and tankies are masters at seeming reasonable. And so if they go unchallenged, people will think that means that their opinions are valid, and they are much more likely to drift towards the tankie mindset themselves. A challenge makes other people think.
So arguing for the sake of a third party reader, that I can get behind.
t-to who?
To people who don’t know, or who know just enough to be dangerous.
For instance, let’s say this person knows how the CIA admitted to messing with another country to put a puppet government in so that the US would have control. And that they biased the people of the US against the people trying to run the country that they didn’t like via lots of nasty propaganda.
Tankies will take that, and use it to claim that the US is trying to do that to China/Russia/North Korea/favorite-tankie-flavor-of-the-week, and therefore any bad thing you hear is nothing but lies and propaganda. Then they start listing good things about said country, making it actually sound amazing and wonderful and sparkly-perfect. In fact you’ll see them do this sequence quite a bit.
A person might be swayed to think that since they’d been lied to once, it was happening again. So they believe the tankie, because no-one comes along and says things like ‘that government actually admitted themselves that they did x bad thing’, or something.