Reduction and reproduction of prejudice: straight-LGB roommates in Chinese college dorms

Due to longstanding stigma, most lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) individuals in China conceal their identities, making opportunities for intergroup contact between straight and LGB people that theoretically could reduce prejudice uncommon. College dorms provide a rare exception, offering many straight students their first close interaction with openly LGB peers. But does contact in this setting reduce anti-LGB attitudes among Chinese younger generation? Drawing on social media data of over 3000 responses on Zhihu—a popular Q&A platform—this paper answers this question using mixed-methods including manual coding, quantitative and qualitative analysis. Contrary to theoretical expectations, the analysis reveals that contact in dorms does not produce uniformly positive attitudes amongst straight respondents. While positive contact is more widespread, negative contact is common and straight attitudes are polarized toward both LGB roommates specifically and LGB people generally. Given growing conservatism in Chinese socio-political contexts, this research underscores the necessity of fostering intergroup contact between straight and LGB peers, but highlights the subtle difficulties for tackling anti-LGB prejudice—especially among young people who are often presumed to be more socially progressive.