There were some officials (remember, we are talking about real people) who engaged in abuse.

This is such an important part here and something that I think we often forget when criticizing countries. Individual accounts of abuse are bad, and certainly a flaw in the system that they are allowed to occur in the way they do but there's a large difference between systemic failure vs systemic empowerment.

I have absolutely no doubt that some of the Real People dealing in Xianjang were abusive in some shape and form. That's how people just are, there's always power hungry abusive assholes seeking roles of power and even the best attempts to weed them out perfectly is going to find that an impossible battle. You're always going to have to be some level of reactive with abuse of power because plenty of them are quite skilled at hiding themselves.

The question of Xianjang is not "Did any abuse at all occur?" but if it (particulary the more standout examples) was systemic and intentional at the higher levels. This question seems very largely to be a resounding no, but I would have no doubt believing that a few lower level officials certainly did some awful things.

Honestly even people here often fall for the same thinking, I remember feeling the same way about the border sterilization case. Was if a horrible thing? Yeah, but it doesn't seem to be drastically systemic as border policy. Was it a failure that it occured at all? Yeah to some degree, but no system can be perfect when the broken cogs disguise themselves.

And also of course you have to keep in mind that in any country on the planet, minds do differ. The degrees on which they differ and how often change based off cultures, but you and I wouldn't exist here to begin with if that wasn't true. There are lots of pro LGBT movements and party members too, and like the rest of the world this seems to be divided pretty heavily along age. And really, China as a whole isn't behind most of the rest of Asia.

Most of the criticisms made towards China on LGBT rights can be rightfully made towards Japan as well, and yet (many) pro LGBT westerners still seem capable of understanding that there are progressive Japanese movements and organizations too.