The Legal Fusion: Confronting Anti-Queer Violence in the Chinese Legal System

Violence targeting the LGBT community in China has been a longstanding concern, triggering a wealth of scholarly investigations primarily reliant on self-reported data, including questionnaires and interviews. Yet, there remains a critical gap in understanding the intricacies of how the judicial system documents and punishes perpetrators in these cases. This research represents a groundbreaking and vital initiative, marking the first endeavor to utilize official data in the analysis of violence against the LGBT community in China. By departing from the conventional reliance on self-reported accounts, this study's innovative use of official legal data promises to provide an unprecedented, comprehensive perspective on the extent and nature of violence faced by LGBT individuals. Against this backdrop, this research aims to delve deeper into understanding the various facets of violence that the LGBTQ+ community in China faces. This includes exploring different forms of violence, such as physical, verbal, and systemic discrimination, as well as the experiences of violence in both public and private spheres. Additionally, the research aims to investigate the sources and perpetrators of this violence, which can range from individuals and communities to institutions and the state. The main contribution of this research lies in the innovative research methodologies. The incorporation of court rulings as a robust data source represents a pioneering approach that complements traditional self-report methods, offering a more comprehensive and reliable understanding of the challenges faced by the LGBT population. This groundbreaking methodology revolutionizes the approach to data collection and analysis within this field, shedding light on the systemic discrimination embedded within the legal framework and judicial discourse in China. Given the limited accessibility of official data such as court rulings to most Western scholars, the data gathered in this study is positioned to serve as a valuable asset for forthcoming researchers delving into the study of violence against the LGBT community in China.