“Since its founding, BlueCity has operated an HIV-focused nonprofit and slowly embedded itself in the state’s public health initiatives to combat the virus. Now, it’s expanding into health care technology more formally, by launching a digital pharmacy and internet hospital for Chinese men.
Emphasizing its health offerings has made it easier for BlueCity to navigate an often precarious political environment for LGBTQI organizations. ‘Blued, even today, can still run a business in China because it mainly positions itself as a health promotion platform, rather than a gay platform,’ said Lik Sam Chan, a communications professor at The Chinese University of Hong Kong and the author of The Politics of Dating Apps: Gender, Sexuality, and Emergent Publics in Urban China. ‘Blued diluted the sexual elements of its business to promote itself as a health promotion platform.’”
August 2021, Rest of World
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