By Thy Vu

Outside the West is an unexpected niche of Chinese queer media: baihe (featuring WLW romance) and danmei (featuring MLM romance). With growing popularity in mainland China, these books explore non-normative / queer identities, despite the commonly known harsh and repressive censorship of the Chinese government.


Baihe and danmei differ significantly from Western queer romances though they are influenced by Western slash fanfic. Heavily influenced from their Japanese counterparts, yuri and yaoi, baihe and danmei emerged as online literary genres steadily gaining foothold and popularity in mainstream culture. Rooted in female fandom spaces, these same sex romance novels are created by and for women and sexual minorities.


Most conversations about queerness in China focus on rights and visibility, so these works rarely get attention. Since 2019, the Chinese state has employed several directives, repressing queer right groups and increasing censorship of queerness, extending it to “sissy men” (feminine men). Several LGBT chat groups and organizations in China have closed.


These web novels are self-published on several sites (where they are then translated by online groups into English and other languages), but state censorship has also made these sites, and associated writers, self-censored for fear of state interference. Authors and readers in this genre are difficult to uncover as most of these novels are published online under pseudonyms. Authors’ identities are further hidden due to censorship. Readers encounter the novels online and read anonymously. Despite this, some titles still circulate and secure deals for censored domestic (romantic elements reduced to friendship) and foreign publication.


Two prominent publishers are Rosmei, with distribution in Singapore, and Seven Seas distributing to North American markets. Most of their novels are of the danmei genre, paralleling the difference in popularity between sapphic and MLM romance in the West. (Readers gravitate more to MLM romance than sapphic stories.) Recently, three baihe novels have been officially published in English: The Beauty’s Blade: Mei Ren Jian by Feng Ren Zuo Shu (Seven Seas), The Creator's Grace, and At The World's Mercy by Ning Yuan (Rosmei). Other novels are still only accessible through online unofficial translations; the most popular within English speaking fandom (according to posts on r/Baihe subreddit) is The Dragon by Tai Yangjun, which has not yet had an official translation.


Despite limited choices, the English title The Beauty’s Blade invites readers into an intense enemies-to-lovers romance between two rival swordswomen (perhaps the sapphic predecessor of Heated Rivalry?), while The Creator's Grace offers a drama full of secrets and betrayals between Ran Jin and her late girlfriend’s sister, and At The World's Mercy explores a sapphic relationship embroidered with court intrigue in the matriarchal realm of Great Yu.


The roots, environment, authorship, and audiences of baihe (featuring WLW romance) and danmei (featuring MLM romance) do not quite align with underground queer literature, which is grounded in queer culture. These novels sit at a crossroads of popular heteronormative culture and queerness. Baihe and danmei are their own genres, listed next to romance, not a subset of it, aligning with heteronormative culture and signaling queerness as other. Nevertheless, these novels have transformative power, increasing representation of queerness for Chinese readers, and offer space for imagined future and past through their seemingly lesbophobic-devoid utopia bubble.


Further Reading:



The Dragon by Tai Yangjun by Tai Yangjun (Jinjiang Literature City, 2019)
A fantasy adventure interweaved with bitter tragedies where romance takes a back seat but is still no less crucial to the plot and the relationship between Gu Fuyou, an ordinary disciple (term for martial art student in Chinese fantasy genres), and her accidentally summoned spirit Nanzhu Jun.





Her Mountain, Her Sea by Fuhua (Jinjiang Literature City, 2020)
Her Mountain, Her Sea is a slow slice of life story following the high school days and budding romance of our two main characters, Chi Tang and You Yu, while they grapple with their family problems and expectations.
“Ponds are a dead pool of stagnant water; does the wandering fish still want to live in this pond?”
“I do.”





The Beauty’s Blade: Mei Ren Jian by Feng Ren Zuo Shu (Seven Seas, 2025)
“The baihe/Girls’ Love novel originally written in Chinese and available in English for the first time! Two powerful swordswomen face off in this enemies-to-lovers historical tale.”





The Creator's Grace Vol. 1 by Ning Yuan (Rosmei, 2026)
“She came home for the truth. What she found was the woman who took everything… and wanted her most of all.”
“The Creator’s Grace is a gripping sci-fi romance about fractured identities and impossible salvation, where love may be the only truth that holds.”
The Creator's Grace, Poster (Source), Drama CD, Weibo





At The World's Mercy Vol. 1-2 by Ning Yuan (Rosmei, 2026)
“At the World’s Mercy is a masterful work of baihe historical fiction, weaving espionage, slow-burn romance, and political ambition into a tale as elegant as it is ruthless.”

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Thy Vu (they/he) is a Sinister Wisdom intern and a graphic designer. They have a BA in Growth and Structure of Cities from Bryn Mawr College. They are interested in exploring how (online) space is adapted and queered, as well as foodways within queer communities and spaces.