Tracer is, infact, still gay in China, so is S76

General Discussion
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I made this reply to another post, but I’m afraid that many people wouldn’t bother to scroll down to read it, and I don’t want to see rumor and baseless accusation get spread, so here we go:

The original pose assumed that blizzard did not even bother translated Tracer’s coming out comic and 76’s comming out novel into Chinese, but that is simply not true. People knows Tracer and S76 are gay in China, and both the comic and short novel was fully translated with no censorship. Yes, the comic was eventually forced to take down by China’s “media management department” due to the notorious censorship rule it published in early 2017, but it was not only Blizzard got hit. Around that time countless LGBT content and forums were took down by the government so I definitely don’t blame them. However you could still find the full comic now easily on other Chinese website, influding netease. And Blizzard still translated the short novel later on without any censorship.

I cannot insert link on this forum, but you could search up 守望先锋漫画映像 on baidu for the comic and Chinese players’ discussions about it, and check out Overwatch’s offical Chinese web for the novel, or search 《猫神》— 全新短篇小说 on baidu.

And before you start to imagine China like an absolute hell for LGBT people and all people work for government are homophobic, let me tell you it’s not. That censorship law published two years ago definitely made things tough, but it’s not like there’s no hope. Not all people in the government agree with the LGBT censorship, and Beijing just approved mutual guardianship fora gay couple this Summer, and our sociologist Dr.李银河 has been tirelessly advocate for LGBT rights in China.

It’s convinient for people to categorize things by good and evil, but reality is much more complex than that. On the recent controversy, people definitely have the freedom to support either side, but supporting HK doesn’t mean people have to view the entire China as your archenemy, nor should people attack innocent Chinese players and Mei’s VA (poor Elise I hope she’s alright). And definitely don’t take people’s assumption as fact and spread rumor.

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Yeah, I saw it.

So freaking slow the page loaded, but I saw it.
And it was glorious.

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Thank you! That page has sparked many discussions in Chinese player base back in 2016, and I could still remember reading it for the first time and sharing it with my friends.

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Its really cool that you added links, OP.

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:joy: I dont know what you mean by “added links” since I couldn’t add it, but thank you for taking time and reading this long post anyway. Just don’t want rumor continue to spread, I’ve already seen a misguided comment on another thread.

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Then thank you for adding URLs.

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As good as it is for people to have healthy skepticism and criticism of companies so many people are just ready to jump on the hate band wagon without actually understanding the details and nuance of a situation. Blizzard is by no means perfect or exempt from criticism but people need to stop hating just so they can be cool.

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As long as people are not allowed to talk about Tracer being gay in China then as far as China is concerned she isn’t gay. As far as China is concerned these comics didn’t happen.

It’s like with Tiananmen Square. It doesn’t matter if people know it happened, in China it didn’t happen.

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Cmon Roctopus, you are not usually that type of sarcastic

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I wasn’t being sarcastic. I wanted to keep this topic active but the only thing I could think of contributing for 5 minutes was “infact is not a word.”

Thinking about it, I’m way more sassy irl.

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Heh, sass.

Anyways yeah, those are the links

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That’s the impression I have.

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As a matter of fact… people could still talk about Tracer being gay in China. Thanks to all the people voicing their disapproval on Weibo back in 2017, and the writers from People (a newspaper) who criticized how Media Management Department equal LGBTQ to “sexual dysfunction”, the censorship did not spread to literature (which is probably the reason why Ana novel was allowed), social media, and forum (though many forum that got banned did not restored and gone for ever, which was sad). So yeah, we could still dicuss about this in China. If you need evidence, I could find some dicussion on Chinese website.

Anyway, I thank you for your concern about LGBTQ community in China, but we know whether the comic has happened or not.

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I wish more people would understand this. I know it’s nice to simplify things, but that’s just not reality.

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i will bump this so people can be informed about it

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i think this line should speak for itself.
she was gay sure, but clearly china wasn’t having it, as was russia, and purged those details

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That really depend on how you look at it. The official OW site doesn’t have the comic anymore, but you could still find it on other unofficial website and forum easily, and most Chinese players who care about lore do know that she has a girlfriend, not to mention that Emily’s spray is still on Chinese server.

And the main reason I posted this was because people were misguided and believed that Blizzard never bother to translate Tracer’s comic and Soldier’s short novel because they want to please Chinese government. I just hope to clear things up and offer more context about the whole situation.

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So Blizzard post the comic on the official site and then took it down because the government got involved?

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She was but now it’s censored? Well that makes sense, they censored all the LGBT chinese webcomics and I think they even arrested some authors recently

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Yes, when censorship law on LGBT got published, comic and video especially got hit really hard. Netease, a company based in Chinese, is responsible for managing Blizzard’s content in China. And if their employee still wants to keep their job they had to take it down. So personally I don’t blame Blizzard for what happened.

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