Photo of the Day: Jiangsu Tongtian

Our photo theme this week is China Pride. As the country’s biggest Pride celebration continues in Shanghai — in sync with Pride events across the world — we spotlight some of the organizations working throughout China to improve LGBTQ rights and awareness, often in extremely challenging circumstances.

Founded in 2002, Jiangsu Tongtian is among the country’s longest-running LGBTQ advocacy groups. One of their most recent major events was a “Rainbow Marathon”, which they held in the capital of Jiangsu province Nanjing just days after Weibo announced it was “cleaning up” all homosexual content on its social media platform.

The group also organizes educational events, discussions, film screenings and more despite facing “unexplained” cancellations, harassment and other hurdles.

#pridemonth Y, a college student & leader of Jiangsu Tongtian, an LGBT org. Her friends found out her suicidal tendency b/c her school interrogated her, checked her phone, demanded her to stop doing any LGBT activities. She’s now being watched by her parents. pic.twitter.com/xUZHpZY6KB

— FreeChineseFeminists (@FeministChina) June 9, 2018

For more on the work of Jiangsu Tongtian, follow their Weibo account here.