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Homosexuality and the Cultural Politics of Tongzhi in Chinese Societies
Journal of Homosexuality
... Previous studies of LGBTQ+ (or Tongzhi as one commonly used local term) communities and individuals in China and other Asian countries have also looked into how Confucian values and norms of familism play out in queer politics (Brainer, 2018;Chou, 2001;Ho, 2011;Song, 2022;Tan, 2011;Wang, 2021). More specifically, researchers have paid attention to how filial piety as a familial norm regulates and disciplines non-heterosexual desires and performances and constitutes an important dimension of queer subjectivities in China (Chou, 2001;Engebretsen, 2014;Ho, 2011). ...
... Previous studies of LGBTQ+ (or Tongzhi as one commonly used local term) communities and individuals in China and other Asian countries have also looked into how Confucian values and norms of familism play out in queer politics (Brainer, 2018;Chou, 2001;Ho, 2011;Song, 2022;Tan, 2011;Wang, 2021). More specifically, researchers have paid attention to how filial piety as a familial norm regulates and disciplines non-heterosexual desires and performances and constitutes an important dimension of queer subjectivities in China (Chou, 2001;Engebretsen, 2014;Ho, 2011). In this regard, Chou (2001) troubled the western-centred perspectives of coming-out which gave primacy to confrontational politics and individualism (e.g. through direct disclosure of sexuality to one's family). ...
... More specifically, researchers have paid attention to how filial piety as a familial norm regulates and disciplines non-heterosexual desires and performances and constitutes an important dimension of queer subjectivities in China (Chou, 2001;Engebretsen, 2014;Ho, 2011). In this regard, Chou (2001) troubled the western-centred perspectives of coming-out which gave primacy to confrontational politics and individualism (e.g. through direct disclosure of sexuality to one's family). Chou (2001: 27) proposed an indigenous approach of Tongzhi (which can be literally translated into English as comrades) politics in China that understands 'coming-home' as a more subtle strategy to negotiate with rather than confronting family. ...
This paper examines the experiences of nine Chinese girls and young women as they explore and negotiate queer subjectivities within the constraints of patriarchal and (hetero)sexual norms surrounding girlhood and young femininity. I focus on filial piety (xiaoshun) as a normative gendered discourse being reconfigured in changing gender, familial and other power dynamics in China. I argue that the discourse of filial piety continues to naturalise a heteronormative girlhood that will smoothly transition into young womanhood prepared to take on responsibilities of ‘getting married and having kids’. This narrative, however, is in tensions with girls and young women’s diversified expressions of sexualities. Through the participants’ own accounts of queer explorations, I demonstrate how they actively engage and reflect on these tensions with familial and filial discourses while navigating the (im)possibilities of becoming queer girls across varied socioeconomic and family backgrounds. The findings of this study offered new insights into how familism and filial piety are woven into Chinese gender and sexual politics and being constantly (re)negotiated. My conceptualisation of queer girlhoods in China shows how queer girls and young women are marginalised in and around family. In the meantime, it demonstrates the emergent strategies of queer resistance and negotiations of filial piety through delaying marriage and managing familial intimacy.
... In addition, some gay men and lesbians take an extreme approach by threatening parents with their suicidal ideation, and some do commit suicide. Further, becoming estranged from their families is also a common choice among this group of people in China [17,18]. ...
... Tongzhi begins with the same character as tongxinglian, but the second character zhi means orientation, goal, and spirit. It is translated from "a Soviet communist term 'comrade,' which refers to the revolutionaries who shared a comradeship" [17]. Chinese in Republican China used the word initially, and then it was taken by both Communist and Nationalist Party to indicate people who struggled for communist or nationalist revolution [17]. ...
... It is translated from "a Soviet communist term 'comrade,' which refers to the revolutionaries who shared a comradeship" [17]. Chinese in Republican China used the word initially, and then it was taken by both Communist and Nationalist Party to indicate people who struggled for communist or nationalist revolution [17]. The term tongzhi does not allude to same-sex sexual attractions nor sexual behaviors anymore, which obviates relating gay men and lesbians with their sexual practices [27]. ...
Chinese gay men and lesbians are faced with multiple challenges by living in a heteronormative society, and marriage is considered to be a major concern among this group of people. Anchoring from the lens of suzhi discourse, this research carried out a qualitative study by interviewing 21 gay men and lesbians to explore how they refer to the suzhi discourse to justify their choices when faced with the pressure to marry, so as to align themselves more with the mainstream social values. Results indicate that when faced with the pressure to marry, gay men and lesbians refer to the suzhi discourse to construct a positive same-sex identity and civilized community, pursue civilized same-sex relationships, or construct a flexible life.
... To understand queer Chinese media and pop culture, it is necessary to first trace the genealogy of the closely related term "homosexuality" in the Chinese-speaking world. Even though mainstream Chinese society has remained heteropatriarchal and heavily indoctrinated by traditional Confucian values, same-sex erotic relations and desires, such as the famous case of "passions of the cut sleeve" (duanxiu zhi pi), were widespread in premodern classical literature, theatrical performances, and historical records (Chao, 2020;Chiang, 2012;Chou, 2001;Guo, 2016;Hinsch, 1990;Kang, 2009;Rocha, 2010;Sang, 2003;C. Wu, 2004;. ...
... As mentioned in the section on "Re(Defining) Queer Chinese Media and Pop Culture," a large body of English-language historiography has acknowledged the existence of same-sex eroticism in premodern China (e.g., Chou, 2000Chou, , 2001Furth, 1994;Hinsch, 1990;Sommers, 2000;van Gulik, 1961;Vitiello, 2011;Volpp, 2011). However, this does not mean that premodern Chinese society was entirely friendly to same-sex eroticism, as suggested (and even romanticized) in earlier English-language academic literature on Chinese indigenous traditions of same-sex desire, such as the book Passions of the Cut Sleeve by Bret Hinsch (1990). 1 On the contrary, research has shown that female same-sex intimacy in premodern ...
Earlier generations of Western scholars often regarded nonheterosexual desires, identities, and intimacies in Chinese-speaking contexts as marginalized, stigmatized, and silenced, if not completely invisible, in mainstream mediascapes and pop cultural spaces. However, in contemporary Chinese and Sinophone contexts, queer practices, images, and narratives voiced, either explicitly or implicitly, by media producers, performers, and consumers or fans who do not necessarily self-identify as LGBTQ are common and even proliferating. These manifestations of queer Chinese media and pop culture are diverse and widespread in both online and offline spaces. In the new millennium, with the rise of queer Asian, queer Chinese, and queer Sinophone studies, scholars have strived to move away from Euro-American-centric and Japanese-centric queer media studies and theories when examining queer Chinese-language media and cultural productions. In particular, a growing body of scholarship (in fields such as literary studies, cinema and television studies, and fan studies) has explored intersecting ways of reconceptualizing “queerness” and “Chineseness” to examine gender, sexual, and sociocultural minority cultures in Chinese-language public and pop cultural spaces. Some of the literature has usefully traced the history of the concepts “homosexuality” and “ tongzhi ” (comrade) in modern and contemporary China, as well as the transcultural transmission and mutations of the meanings of the English term “queer” ( ku’er ) in Chinese media studies. Differentiating these concepts helps clarify the theorization of and scholarly debates surrounding queer Chinese media and pop culture in the 21st century. A number of scholars have also troubled the meaning and the essentialized identity of “Chineseness” through a queer lens while decolonizing and de-Westernizing queer Chinese media and pop cultural studies. In addition, post-2010 scholarship has paid major attention to Chinese media censorship and regulations (with a close focus on the context of mainland China/the People’s Republic of China/PRC) concerning homosexual and queer content production, circulation, and consumption and how these have been circumvented in both traditional and online media spaces.
... MSMs live in extreme normative conditions in Turkey because their family may reject them or evict them from their home due to their sexual orientation. MSMs may also desire to protect their family from societal pressure and social isolation (Bott, 1971;Wah-Shan, 2001;Li et al., 2008;Yoshioka andSchustack, 2001, Mustanski, 2011;Bird and Voisin, 2001;Wah-Shan, 2001). ...
... MSMs live in extreme normative conditions in Turkey because their family may reject them or evict them from their home due to their sexual orientation. MSMs may also desire to protect their family from societal pressure and social isolation (Bott, 1971;Wah-Shan, 2001;Li et al., 2008;Yoshioka andSchustack, 2001, Mustanski, 2011;Bird and Voisin, 2001;Wah-Shan, 2001). ...
According to statistics published by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), by the end of 2019, 38 million people were living with HIV. Hornet is the most frequently-used gay-oriented social network worldwide, especially in France, Russia, Brazil, Turkey, and Taiwan. In this study, we focused on the correlation between the route of transmission for the HIV-1 virus and social media application usage in terms of sexual contact according to the generation category in Turkey. The study included 280 heterosexual, bisexual, and men who have sex with men (MSM) who were newly diagnosed and antiretroviral treatment-naive HIV-1 patients from cities located in the Marmara region in Turkey. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with each patient between 2015 and 2020. As key populations of the study, bisexuals and MSMs were counted together in the MSMs category because in both sexual preferences, MSM. HIV-1 subtypes and circulating recombinant forms (CRFs) were identified by phylogenetic analysis. Subtype B (80%, 224/280), non-subtype B (7.5%, 21/280), and CRFs (12.5%, 35/280) were identified as the most commonly occurring HIV-1 subtypes. HIV-1 acquisition route was found to be largely through MSM contact (67.9%, 190/280) compared to heterosexual contact (32.1%, 90/280). We have analysed the role of sex-oriented social media applications in HIV transmission among different sexual contacts. The study results showed that sex-oriented social media applications play a facilitator role in HIV transmission between key populations. This study may be useful for developing policies to prevent HIV transmission.
... Empirical research has documented significant gender and sexual orientation differences in LGB identity in Western societies (e.g., Balsam & Mohr, 2007;Bregman, Malik, Page, Makynen, & Lindahl, 2013;Brewster & Moradi, 2010;Mohr & Fassinger, 2000). The Confucian culture in China is quite different from Western cultures; although immense social changes accompanying modernization have already occurred, the traditional culture (e.g., traditional family-kinship system and filial piety) would still affect the attitude towards sexual minority among the general population and sexual minorities themselves (Chou, 2001;Lin, Button, Su, & Chen, 2016;Liu, Chui, & Chung, 2021). However, less is known about LGB identity in the Chinese cultural context . ...
... Chinese society remains strongly socially conservative and guided by Confucianism (Deutsch, 2006). Confucianism emphasizes the importance of the family (Chou, 2001), with the family perceived as the most basic and profound social institution under which both parents and the child have obligations and responsibilities. Filial piety is a central family value influencing LGB identity in China (Adamczyk & Cheng, 2015;Wang, Bih, & Brennan, 2009). ...
Sexual minority identity had far-reaching influences on psychological outcomes among lesbian women, gay men, and bisexual people. Previous studies conducted in Western nations revealed significant gender and sexual orientation differences in experiences of sexual minority stress. However, few studies have focused on the identity of asexual people. Confucian culture has exerted important influences on the formulation of sexual minority identity in China, but less is known about sexual minority identity among Chinese sexual minorities. This study, using Chinese sexual minority samples, aimed to test whether it is consistent with the findings in Western culture that males and bisexual minorities had more negative sexual identities than females and lesbian/gay individuals; asexual people were also included to extend the lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) identity to sexual minority identity. We further tested whether asexual people, similar to bisexual people, have more of a negative identity compared with lesbian/gay individuals. Eight hundred seventy-three participants (464 lesbian and gay men, 200 bisexual and 209 asexual people) completed the Lesbian and Gay Identity Scale (LGIS) or the Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Identity Scale (LGBIS). The results showed that bisexual people had a more negative identity than the lesbian and gay male people. Asexual people showed similar patterns to bisexual people in terms of sexual minority identity when compared with lesbian and gay male people, but they reported less Difficulty Process than did the bisexual people. The findings of this study indicate the cross-cultural consistency of sexual minority identity in terms of gender and sexual orientation.
... While the growing global literature on LGBTQ+ identity, perceived stress, and mental health emphasizes the importance of future-oriented coping strategies within the community [8][9][10], studies specifically examining this aspect among LGBTQ+ individuals in China remain limited. Existing studies primarily focus on the gay community and their stress, challenges, and lives [4,11,12]. Addressing these gaps, the present study examines the extent of outness among Chinese LGBTQ+ individuals in response to perceived pressures and investigates the impact of proactive and preventive coping strategies on this decision. Finally, this study also investigated the perceived stress and outness of LGBTQ+ individuals in China, in order to provide a comprehensive understanding of the current situation of stress and coming out of the LGBTQ+ individuals in China and to enrich the existing research. ...
Despite global progress in LGBTQ+ rights, sexual minorities in China face significant societal pressures and legal ambiguities, which remain poorly understood. This study explores the potential mediating role of proactive and preventive coping strategies in the relationship between perceived stress and outness levels among Chinese LGBTQ+ individuals. Survey data from 267 Chinese LGBTQ+ individuals aged 16–42 revealed high levels of perceived stress within this community. Both proactive and preventive coping strategies significantly mediated the negative impact of perceived stress on outness levels. These findings contribute to the understanding of LGBTQ+ community’s perceived stress and outness status in China, highlighting the need for inclusive policies and support systems to improve their mental health and social well-being.
... Trans. Mine) Nonetheless, since the rule of the Chinese Communist Party that regards itself obliged to mandate culture in all aspects of form, content, production, distribution and canonisation (Hockx 2015: 1-2), homosexuality has been subject to moral scrutiny and imposed on extra-legal sanctions (Chou 2001, Li 2006, Kong 2016, especially during the Cultural Revolution (Jones 2007, Worth et al 2017. To be more specific, homosexuality-themed media representation is under nation-wide surveillance, so allegedly offensive content is expurgated prior to official approval by the National Radio and Television Administration (Ng 2015, McLelland 2016, Wang 2019. ...
Notwithstanding the fact that ?? youmo ‘humour’ is a neologism and transliteration coined in the 1920s, the conception has been existing in Chinese civilisation for millennia. The earliest extant treatise on humour in Chinese literature is regarded to be an anthology ?? Xiao Lin ‘The Forest of Laughs’ cumulated circa 2ndc CE, yet the most illustrious pre-modern jestbook is a 1791 assemblage entitled ???? Xiao Lin Guang Ji ‘A Collection of Classic Chinese Jokes’. In the 2000s, stand-up comedy entered China’s entertainment market as a niche cultural import, though it was, and still is, mistranslated into ??? tuokouxiu ‘talk show’. Recently, stand-up comedy attains visibility in China by means of phenomenal online programmes. I postulate that Chinese stand-up comedy is featured by unique attributes, in that it is disparate from ‘A Collection of Classic Chinese Jokes’ and the traditional theatrical comedy called ?? xiangsheng ‘cross-talk’, and it is not parallel to its equivalent in the West either. To be more specific, being subject to stringent censorship, stand-up comedy in China is circumspect about content appertaining to (homo)sexual titillation and supernaturalism. Nonetheless, I posit that in terms of inducing humorous effects, contemporary stand-up comedy still evinces similitude to ‘A Collection of Classic Chinese Jokes’ from phonetic, semantic and pragmatic perspectives.
... The findings suggested Chinese parents suffered from peer pressure when their children were the few ones who had not gotten married in their social circles. Then they would put more pressure on their children to have faces when socially engaging with relatives, friends, and neighbors (Chou, 2001;McMillan, 2006). Previous research argued that women in China are labeled as leftover if they still have not gotten married in their late 20s or early 30s (You et al., 2016). ...
... Openly living as an LGBTQ person can make the family vulnerable to gossips and bring disgrace and stigma to the family name (Hu & Wang, 2013). It may also involve the loss of face for parents, who must deal with accusations of having failed in their parenting duty and the shame of raising a sexually deviant child (Chou, 2001;Huang, 2016). ...
... Chinese LGB individuals tend to develop a sham marriage, such as formality marriage (i.e. the marriage between male and female sexual minority) and marriage fraud (i.e. a closeted sexual minority individual gets married with a heterosexually opposite sex person who does not know the former's sexual orientation), which aims to hide their sexual identity and meet parents' heterosexist expectation (Chou, 2001;Ren et al., 2019). When LGB individuals perceive parents' support for their sexual orientation, they may have more courage to be themselves and receive more family support on sexual minority issues (Kwok & Wu, 2015;Wang et al., 2009). ...
Introduction: Past research focusing on Western samples has demonstrated that heterosexist harassment, rejection, and discrimination (HHRD) were associated with psychological problems. How and when this relation would occur, however, remains unclear, especially for understudied Chinese sexual minorities. Method: A convenience sample of 1,453 Chinese lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) individuals aged 18-50 participated in this study. They provided demographic information and completed measures of HHRD, internalized homophobia, perceived parental support for sexual orientation, anxiety, and depression. Structural equation modelling was conducted for data analyses. Results: Internalized homophobia partially accounted for the positive relation between HHRD and psychological problems (i.e. anxiety and depression). The indirect effect of HHRD on psychological problems through internalized homophobia was smaller when Chinese LGB persons had higher levels of perceived parental support for sexual orientation. Conclusions: Internalized homophobia might be an underlying mechanism for the relation between HHRD and psychological problems, and perceived parental support for sexual orientation may play a critical role in disrupting the pathway from HHRD to psychological problems through internalized homophobia.
... For sexual minorities in China, filial piety is a significant factor affecting their life (Chou, 2001). Previous research has documented that Chinese gay people who synthesize their sexual identity into a holistic sense of self often choose not to come out as a result of filial piety (Wang, 2011); they are likely to develop heterosexual marriage to preserve parents' face (mianzi; Zheng et al., 2020). ...
Research has consistently shown the importance of affirmative practice when therapists work with lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer/questioning (LGBQ) clients. However, less is known about factors that may influence the extent to which clients benefit from affirmative practice. The present study intends to address this gap by examining whether LGBQ affirmative practice would be positively associated with psychological well-being, and whether individuals factors including internalized homophobia (IH), reciprocal filial piety (RFP; providing care and support for parents based on affective bonding), and authoritarian filial piety (AFP; showing unconditional obedience to parents based on parental authority) would moderate this relationship. A total of 128 Chinese LGBQ clients (50% male, 38.3% female, and 11.7% nonbinary/gender queer; age: M = 25.26 years, SD = 5.46) from 21 provinces and regions completed the online survey. Results revealed that LGBQ affirmative practice was positively associated with psychological well-being after controlling for LGBQ clients' pretherapy distress and therapists' credibility. Such association was greater for LGBQ clients who had higher levels of IH and AFP, whereas such effect did not vary with RFP. This study provides preliminary empirical evidence for the effectiveness of LGBQ affirmative practice in psychological health among Chinese LGBQ clients. Moreover, LGBQ affirmative practice might be more helpful for LGBQ clients with higher IH and AFP. These findings implicate that Chinese counselors and therapists should engage in LGBQ affirmative practice when they work with LGBQ clients, especially for those who have high levels of IH and AFP. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).
... This argument resonates with the classic debate on coming out or coming home in sociological studies of Chinese homosexuality. Sociologist Wah-Shan Chou (2001) argues that coming out can be culturally problematic for Chinese contexts/homosexuals as 'out' implies leaving the family. He proposes to replace coming out with coming home as an indigenous lexicon of homosexuals' self-confirmation. ...
This review provides a critical exploration of four key books in sociology of homosexuality published in mainland China since 2000, namely Wei Wei’s Going Public (2012), Queering Chinese Society (2015), Xiaoxing Fu’s Space, Culture and Performance 2012, and Qingfeng Wang’s Homosexuality Studies 2017. We identify three important themes from the books: space, family, and identity. Based on this, we demonstrate two characteristics of the sociology of homosexuality in twenty-first-century China, with its focus on the theoretical potentials of the Chinese case and its combination of sociological perspectives and multidisciplinary approaches.
... While, as stated above, queer applied linguistic research has mainly dealt with 'northern' conceptions (and problems) of gender and sexuality, questions have long been raised as to how such conceptions of gender and sexual identity are perceived, adopted, and adapted across the globe. Consequently, discussions have emerged around how a language of sexuality and/or sexual identity is being presented, understood, and utilised in a wide variety of contexts and forms for different purposes, such as through political or educational activism (Chou 2001;Boellstorff 2004;Leap & Boellstorff 2004;Wong D. 2011). Binding many of these questions/discussions together is a critical consideration of the powerful status of English, especially as it appears to function in many ways as the global lingua franca of sexualities with respect to those who identify as gay/lesbian/transgender etc. (see for example King, 2008;Nelson, 2010). ...
This case study focuses on the educational materials created by an NGO drop-in centre for the queer/questioning community in a Cambodian city. These materials consist of bilingual posters (English and Khmer) on display at the centre which provide explanations to those who make use of this space about diverse gender/sexual identities (LGBTQ+), as well as online resources featured on the NGO’s website/social media that raise awareness of these issues at both local and global levels. The study seeks to gain critical insight into the use of certain linguistic resources for sexuality education at this site of instruction. To do so, we present a multimodal discourse analysis of a sample of the materials, together with an analysis of metapragmatic reflections drawn from interviews conducted with the centre’s director. We therefore attend to how multilingual linguistic resources, and other semiotic forms, are being used to foster and shape knowledges about gender and sexualities at this site of community engagement, and how a metapragmatic negotiation of these knowledges in the interview reveals identity work that impacts these linguistic choices and their potential effects.
... The decriminalization of homosexuality in 1991 emancipated self-identi ed homosexuals from criminal judgement but legal protection still remains absent in today's world. The homosexual type Tongzhi is also facilitated and highlighted in the debate for decriminalization (Chou, 2000(Chou, , 2001. As a response to the lack of welfare from the government, various Tongzhi uno cial groups and non-government organizations gradually emerge to offer social support to gay men in the post-1991 era (Kong et al., 2015). ...
This article engages in the discussion of homonormativity in gay cultural politics. Duggan (2002) coined the term ‘new homonormativity’ to portray the political trajectory of the gay liberation movement and the neoliberal regime, which eventually decenters the LGBTQ+ movement from the left politics to a ‘third-way’ politic. After the popularization of the term, scholars subsequently apply the concept to signpost the internal cultural schism within the community. According to these studies, non-conforming gay men are marginalized under the homonormative regulation. In this article, I suggest that this application of homonormativity on gay cultural politics might not be able to fully capture the complex power relations within the gay community. Consequently, I propose an alternative conceptual framework called ‘ hegemonic homosexuality ’. Exemplified the semi-structured interviews conducted with 21 Hong Kong Grindr users, I demonstrate the application of the proposed framework and illustrate three principles – (1) tacit consent, (2) dialectic power relations, and (3) multiple hegemonies – that are embedded in the tension among the Grindr users. Instead of portraying an all-powerful, omnipresent normative institution, this framework aims to subject gay men to relativity, highlighting their potential to subvert the oppression.
... Results showed that Confucianism was substantially connected to sexual minority adults' intention to marry. To meet societal pressure and not bring dishonor to families, sexual minority individuals often hide their sexual orientation (Chou, 2001;Steward et al., 2013). Thus, participants with high communalism may be more likely to marry. ...
In traditional Confucianist culture in China, marriage and offspring are highly valued, placing sexual minority adults under tremendous pressure to marry an opposite sex partner. This study explored how Confucianism and stigma were associated with the intention to pursue a heterosexual marriage among Chinese sexual minority individuals as well as the moderating mechanisms of gender and age. Cross-sectional data were collected from 747 participants via online social networks from March to June 2020. Items assessed Confucianism values (communalism, filial piety, traditional gender roles); stigma (rejection sensitivity, social discrimination); and heterosexual marital intention (HMI). A total of 1.7% (n = 12) participants had ever been married, 11.6% (n = 87) planned to marry a different-sex partner, 60.4% (n = 451) had no intention to pursue a heterosexual marriage, and 26.4% (n = 197) had no specific marital plan. Bisexual participants scored significantly higher than homosexual individuals in HMI. Sexual minority adults with high levels of Confucianism and stigma were more likely to intend to marry. Importantly, both individual stigma (rejection sensitivity) and interpersonal stigma (social discrimination) partially mediated the relationship between Confucianism and HMI. Confucianism had a stronger impact on HMI for men than women, and age moderated the influence of Confucianism (including communalism and filial piety) on HMI, with a stronger impact for younger than older generations. This study contributes to a better understanding of how Confucianism and stigma may be connected to the intention to pursue a heterosexual marriage, suggesting culture-modified theories of stigma and sexual minority stress are needed to explain the experiences of sexual minority people in contemporary China.
... This move was hailed by members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community in China-which has the world's largest LGBT population and shares a common language and culture with Taiwan [11]-as a model for other Chinese societies to follow [12]. Although observers have noted that LGBT rights and marriage equality are no longer fringe issues in Chinese public discourse [13,14], advocacy for same-sex marriage in China is still largely limited to gay communities and activists [15]. Unlike in Taiwan or in the US, the gay rights movement in China remains a grassroots affair [12]. ...
Unlike Western corporations, Chinese companies have yet to widely adopt corporate social advocacy (CSA) as a proactive strategy for corporate communication due to the different cultures and business environments. With only a handful of Chinese companies committing to CSA communication, the consequences of such practice on consumer relationship building and maintenance remain elusive. In light of expectancy violations theory (EVT), this study explores Chinese consumers’ expectations of domestic CSA on the issue of same-sex marriage and the effects of proactive corporate social advocacy communication. Through structure equation modeling of 418 survey responses, this study examines the relationship between the violation of Chinese consumers’ expectations of CSA and the quality of consumer relationships through the mediation of violation valence, violation expectedness, and relationship certainty.
... In Sinophone societies, tongzhi is a term that encompasses non-normative sexualities and gender expressions. Beyond the notions of homosexuality and transgenderism, tongzhi is a cultural product that blurs the line of morality/immorality by borrowing a positive reference for that term from the Mandarin language (comradeship) and the Japanese expression (like-mindedness)(Chou 2001;Chi 2015). On the other hand, takatāpui is an umbrella term used by Māori people for all kinds of SGMs in pre-colonial New Zealand, once eradicated due to the imposition of Victorian morality. ...
This article argues for the necessity of recognising the collective rights-holding status of ‘sexual and gender minorities’ (SGMs) by examining the limits of the discourse concerning sexual orientation and gender identity in international law. I consider both symbolic interactionism and queer theory, which are critical of the assumption that everyone subscribes to a gender and a sexual identity. The theorisation proposed here accounts for not only people who possess a relatively stable identity, but also people whose situations are not conclusively characterised but still require recognition justice. Not equating SGMs to LGBTI populations, I contend that the use of the term ‘SGMs’ should capture the sociocultural dynamics of the way in which one is made a ‘minority’. In light of the variations regarding sexual and gender norms in diverse contexts, SGMs are conceptually useful to accommodate differential experiences of nonconformity with the normative.
... Pragmatic resistance is characterised by strategies that simultaneously comply with and rework normative social values privileged by the state, for example, the traditional Confucian (Chinese) and communitarian values of conduct, family, and citizenship that have been (re)purposed as central ideologies through which both the Singapore and Hong Kong post-colonial governments regulate the lives of their citizens (Kong 2011, Lazar 2017, Leong 2012, Phillips 2013, Tan 2015. In this way, for example, the ideal of the cohesive Chinese/Asian family has become a central framework through which campaigners in these regions have sought to position the acceptance of non-normative sexual identities -a "coming home" narrative as opposed to a Western-style "coming out" one (Chou 2001, Kam 2017, Leung 2008. ...
In this article, we extend discourse analytical research that has focused on Pink Dot events in Singapore to events in Hong Kong. As such we engage queer Sinophone perspectives to examine the simultaneously local and transregional epistemological flows that converge and diverge within the margins of the Sinophone cultural sphere. Using a multimodal analysis of two Pink Dot Hong Kong promotional videos, we investigate the extent to which these videos follow the (homo)normative and (homo)nationalist discursive strategies identified in the literature on Pink Dot Singapore. Our analysis suggests that ambivalences surrounding national identity, citizenship and state-sponsored national values in the Hong Kong videos bring into question readings of the Pink Dot movement as a (homo)nationalist enterprise, thus indicating an emergent relocalization of Pink Dot strategies that draws attention to how queer movements in Hong Kong are currently being shaped within the city’s broader sociopolitical context.
... Same-sex marriage is still illegal in China [41]. As a result, a sexual minority who does not act like his or her peers by not getting married at a certain age will become a concern and shame to the whole family for being deviant from the majority, and for failing to continue the family line [42]. Wang et al. (2015) found that gay/bisexual men in a qualitative study described constant pressure from family, social, and workplace to have a female partner, and they also stated the difficulties to establish stable same-sex relationships [43]. ...
Background
Literature in the West suggested that bisexual men have a higher smoking rate compared to gay men. Data on patterns of smoking among gay and bisexual men are limited in Eastern Asian countries like China. This study examined the cigarette smoking prevalence for gay versus bisexual men in China and their unique minority stress - smoking pathways.
Methods
Between September 2017 and November 2018, we surveyed a convenience sample of 538 gay men and 138 bisexual men recruited from local sexual minority organizations in four metropolitan cities in China (i.e., Beijing, Wuhan, Nanchang, and Changsha). Measures included sexual orientation, sociodemographics, theory-based minority stressors, depressive symptoms, and past 30-day cigarette smoking. Two-group (gay men vs. bisexual men) structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test possible distinct mechanisms between theory-based stressors, depressive symptoms, and cigarette smoking among gay men and bisexual men, respectively.
Results
The mean age of participants was 26.51 (SD = 8.41) years old and 76.3% of them had at least a college degree. Bisexual men reported a higher rate of cigarette smoking compared to gay men (39.9% vs. 27.3%). Two-group SEM indicated that the pathways for cigarette smoking were not different between gay and bisexual men. Higher rejection anticipation was associated with greater depressive symptoms (standardized β = 0.32, p < .001), and depressive symptoms were not associated with cigarette smoking.
Conclusions
Minority stress, specifically rejection anticipation, may be critical considerations in addressing depressive symptoms, but not smoking, among both gay and bisexual men in China.
... Similarly, in a realistic social novel 金瓶梅 Jīn Píng Méi 'The Plum in a Golden Vase' featuring heterosexual and homosexual promiscuity (Cheng andLei 2014, Yao 2017), there are depictions of epicene boys who fall prey to the sexual exploitation of lecherous men occupying a higher social status (Lau andNg 1989, Volpp 1996 , the protagonist is a female impersonator of Peking Opera performance, who is surmised for homosexuality and male-male prostitution (Wang 1989, Kang 2009, and this actor is characterised by epicene traits such as 白净 (Zhou andWu 2011, Li 2017). As for the realistic, thought-provoking online novel 北京故事 Běijīng Gùshì 'Beijing Story' which has been adapted into an awardwinning film 蓝宇 Lán Yǔ, although it does not equip the protagonist assuming the passive role with excessively effeminate appearance (Example (4)), he is typically in a socially inferior position in relation to his penetrator partner; this top-bottom chasm accords with the traditional construal that anal penetration between males is intertwined with classism and ageism (Sommer 1997), so men are permitted to sexually penetrate social inferiors of both genders to manifest their social superiority (Chou, 2001). ...
In this paper, I investigate dānměi as a groundbreaking literary genre by means of scrutinising an illustrious male writer pseudonymed Fēitiānyèxiáng, and I propound that his works are exemplary as online writing. As a growing Chinese Internet literature, the female-oriented dānměi genre, aka Boys Love, has attracted legions of heterosexual fangirl producers and consumers as well as a meagre amount of their male counterparts. Among male dānměi writers, who are in an absolute minority, Fēitiānyèxiáng is celebrated for a wide range of innovative themes and magnificent storylines, and his fiction is replete with profound literary and historical allusions and elaborate and meticulous depictions. Furthermore, notwithstanding a non-reversible bipartite dichotomy between seme (top) and uke (bottom) roles, Fēitiānyèxiáng's writing is not featured by feminisation of uke, which is clichéd characterisation in not only the dānměi subculture, but also classical and modern Chinese literature. More significantly, Fēitiānyèxiáng's narratives are reality-oriented, addressing adverse circumstances in a real-world context and hence rendering characters more multi-faceted, and he does not circumvent realistic issues or create over-romanticised representation, analogous to his equivalent pseudonymed Nánkāngbáiqǐ.
... If "coming home" connotes never letting same-sexual orientation be seen and acknowledged, it can never lead to the effects of "coming out", if the latter means an overt same-sex relationship and a lifelong LGBT lifestyle. Thus, I do not think that "coming home" and "coming out" are as compatible with each other as Chou believes (Chou, 2000;2001), at least the different meanings behind the two strategies may cause difficulties to someone who attempts to come out through coming home. Otherwise, in the case mentioned above, coming home to shoot a film titled "coming out" could be possible, and could finally help the lesbian performer as well as her lesbian friends be accepted by her families. ...
In contemporary China, “coming out” has become a controversial topic within LGBT communities and academia. It is considered as an imported notion from the West and therefore is less applicable in Chinese contexts. The local notion “coming home” has emerged recently, which means including same-sex partner as a familial member without
explicit disclosure of the nature of the relationship. However, in my research on young Chinese lesbians in Beijing, I found that “leaving home”—leaving one’s natal family and seeking for a new life physically and emotionally far away from the natal family—is becoming the most used strategy for lesbians whether they have come out or not. This
paper uses three cases to analyze how young Chinese lesbians as well as their families, choose, experience and give meanings to the three strategies—“coming out”, “coming home” and “leaving home”. This paper ends by discussing about the relation between the “home” and the “closet”, and by reflecting on some conclusions in the existing aca�demic literature, including the overrated compatibility between “coming out” and “coming home”, and the lack of exploring other possibilities such as “leaving home”.
Religious and political conservatism are the strongest predictors of opposition to same‐sex marriage (SSM) in the West. As marriage equality increasingly becomes a political issue in parts of the world where evangelical Christianity is less common and political parties have not taken clear positions, it is less clear whether the same factors influence public opinion elsewhere. We focus on Taiwan, which reinforced its international reputation as a beacon of liberal values by becoming the first Asian country to legalize SSM, even though the public had just voted against marriage equality in a referendum. Although Christian churches led the opposition to SSM, surveys from before and after the policy change indicate that traditional cultural norms presented greater obstacles to marriage equality than religion. Age and education also had strong impacts on public support for marriage equality, but gender and partisan differences were relatively weak.
Related Articles
Gover, Daniel. 2023. “Religious Lobbying and Policy Influence: Christian Interest Group Impacts Around the Legalization of Same‐Sex Marriage in England and Wales.” Politics & Policy 51, no. 6: 1097–1116. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12559 .
Bramlett, Brittany H. 2012. “The Cross‐Pressures of Religion and Contact with Gays and Lesbians, and Their Impact on Same‐Sex Marriage Opinion.” Politics & Policy , 40, no. 1, 13–42. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747‐1346.2011.00337.x .
Lewis, Gregory B., and Craig W. Gossett. 2008. “Changing Public Opinion on Same‐Sex Marriage: The Case of California.” Politics & Policy , 36, no. 1, 4–30. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747‐1346.2007.00092.x .
This article clarifies how a status of disabled minority affects a process in which gay people inform their parents of their sexualities. Most research on this issue has often presumed that individuals belonging to both sexuality and disability minorities would experience compounded disadvantages, leading multiple difficulties in coming out. As a case study of such coming out processes, I apply three coming out models remarkably discussed in in the context of Queer Sinophone Studies: coming-out model, coming-home model, and coming-with model. Based on these models, this study focuses on a Taiwan-based gay man with physical disabilities faced through the experience of coming out to his parents. The result indicates that the gay man’s status of combined minorities with sexuality and disabilities, which led to “compounded disadvantages”, did not act as a negative factor in his relationship with his family. In conclusion, those with combined minorities flexibly apply their multiple minorities in order to improve the family relationship in the process of coming out, in which they switch or combine some among the three models depending on the situation. It is crucial not to categorize them strictly into a particular model. Instead, examining these experiences within the broader context of the complexities faced by individual parties and the subsequent transformations in family relationships provides a more nuanced understanding.
Hong Kong and Taiwan, two Sinophone societies peripheral to continental China, have divergent colonial pasts and distinct cultures. Yet, their fates have been increasingly intertwined since the rise of China in the global economy. We propose the geopolitics of queer archives to trace minor–minor exchanges of queer knowledge and activism that are neither officially recognized by the state nor mapped into mainstream discussions of international relations. Through a conjunctural analysis of queer scholarship in Hong Kong and Taiwan since the 1980s, we contest the notion of Chineseness in shaping the knowledge of queer sexualities and argue that a wholesale recycling of postcolonial critique on these two societies’ resistance to China risk reproducing US-centrism.
This article contributes to the understanding of public representations of homosexuality in China by focusing on the case of a homophobic textbook. College student Xixi sued Jinan University Press (JUP) in 2017 for classifying homosexuality as a psychosexual disorder. Three years later, a Chinese court dismissed Xixi’s lawsuit against the allegedly homophobic textbook published by JUP. The ruling elicited responses on Chinese social media that demonstrated the polarisation of public opinion regarding homosexuality. This article investigates discursive representations of homosexuality in online space by analysing the public discourse surrounding this problem. Using van Leeuwen’s discursive delegitimation strategies (i.e., authorisation, moral evaluation, rationalisation, and mythopoesis), 496 comments posted on Sina Weibo were employed and subjected to discourse analysis. According to our findings, these strategies contribute to public opposition to homosexuality, portrayed as unhealthy, infertile, disruptive, and corrosive. The article concludes by discussing the emerging sociocultural factors on Sina Weibo that influence the anti-homosexuality attitudes of Weibo users.
This paper examined how gay men were incorporated into China’s HIV/AIDS policies from 1987 to 2019. We also explored how these policies reflect the country’s broader position regarding homosexuality. A textual analysis method was adopted using China’s national-level HIV/AIDS policies, regulations, a nd guidelines (1987–2019, N = 26). Three periods related to the incorporation of gay men into China’s HIV/AIDS policies were identified: 1987–1990, 1991–2001, and 2002–present, based on whether gay men are explicitly mentioned in the national HIV/AIDS policies. Four ways in which gay men are addressed through national HIV/AIDS policies were identified. Notably, heteronormativity-related moral and sex education remains in place in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic among gay men and other men who have sex with men (MSM), while homosexuality has already symbolically decriminalized and depathologized since the late 1990s and the early 2000s, respectively. Additionally, increased education on sexual orientation was included in the HIV/AIDS policy as of 2017. While China’s pragmatic approach to HIV/AIDS has contributed to the increased visibility and representation of gay men in official and public discourse, the country’s response to HIV/AIDS seems to reflect its persistent regulation of nonnormative sexuality as well as moral control toward homosexuality. Other underlying issues regarding China’s HIV/AIDS policies and suggestions to improve HIV/AIDS governance are also discussed.
The term “tongzhi” was coined in 1989 by the Hong Kong‐based cultural critic Lin Yihua. It was taken from the last words of Dr. Sun Yat‐sen and conveyed the notion that LGBTQ “comrades” shall keep fighting for their rights. Very soon the term propagated to all Chinese societies in Asia, including Taiwan and China. This suggests a transnational pattern of sexual cultural products, which can only be made possible with the advance of modern communication technology. Since its inception it has functioned as a widely used umbrella term for alternative sexual subjects in contemporary Chinese society.
This study examined identity disclosure among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) students in China and investigated the effects of coming out on school victimization as well as current academic performance and long-term educational outcomes. The study drew on a national sample of 9260 Chinese LGBTI students (age range = 12-42 years) and 9668 LGBTI individuals who were not in education (age range = 14-85 years). The results showed that LGBTI students were more likely to come out to their fellow students (61.4%) than to their teachers (42.4%). Approximately 40.2% of LGBTI students reported having encountered victimization in school, and they also were more likely to report school dropout and lower levels of educational attainment than those who did not experience school victimization. Transgender and gender nonconforming students and intersex students were particularly vulnerable to the experiences and adverse effects of school victimization. In addition, the findings indicated that although students who came out in school were more likely to experience school victimization, identity disclosure was related to better long-term educational outcomes. This study is one of the first to document the identity disclosure, victimization experiences, and school outcomes of LGBTI students in China. The results show that identity concealment may bring short-term benefits by protecting LGBTI students from school victimization but may be harmful to them in the longer run. To foster a supportive climate and a safe school environment, it is important to enact sexual and gender diversity education, inclusive school policies, and teacher training programs at different levels of schooling.
Chenyang Wang legt eine empirische Arbeit vor, die eine psychosoziale Neuinterpretation einer Forschungsbegegnung mit einem chinesischen älteren schwulen Mann bietet. Er erörtert die Beziehung zwischen der individuellen Lebensgeschichte und der chinesischen Kultur, Gesellschaft und dem Staat im Wandel. Chenyang Wangs Analyse untersucht, wie Begehren und Sprache miteinander verwoben sind, wie eine individualisierte Sichtweise der Erotik den vorherrschenden Diskurs über Sexualität herausfordert und wie geschlechtliche Subjektivität durch Erzählungen über persönliche Erfahrungen zum Ausdruck kommt. Dieses Kapitel lenkt die Aufmerksamkeit auch auf die eigene Subjektposition des Forschers im Akt der Interpretation und regt psychosoziales Denken darüber an, wie Verständnis in einer Beziehung zwischen dem Selbst und dem Anderen möglich wird. Methodisch gesehen ergänzt es die Literatur darüber, wie Fallstudien in der psychosozialen Forschung eingesetzt werden können, um Fragen zu Subjektivität, Ethik und Reflexivität zu stellen.
This article aims to illustrate the appropriation of the term ‘tongzhi, 同志’ in the formation of LGBT+ identity in (post-)colonial Hong Kong tracing the splintering of sexual identity and development of tongzhi from sexual deviant to sexual citizen. It examines three distinct waves (1980s, 1990s, and 2000s) within which the term ‘tongzhi’ has been translated in each context acting as a tool of resistance and subversion. This research adopts a Foucauldian perspective of sexuality and George L. Mosse’s conceptualization of nationalism to analyze how the identity of sexual minorities have been marginalized, problematized, and regulated by three locales of power following the colonization of Hong Kong. ‘Sexual citizenship’ is employed to analyze the transformation of tongzhi during the tongzhi movement’s campaign to decriminalize homosexual activity, develop a community, and acquire the status of citizen.
This study illustrates and discusses how young gay Taiwanese men interact with straight and nonstraight people through humour and teasing on an LGBTQ-oriented YouTube entertainment variety show in Taiwan. The analytical framework of the study is informed by multimodal discourse analysis and interactional sociolinguistics. Four strategies used to create humour are identified: performing wúlítóu ‘nonsense’, using quadrisyllabic (non)formulaic expressions, using gender subversion and using indirect insults (towards close female friends). The analysis suggests that all four strategies rely on indexical disjuncture and are used by young gay Taiwanese men not only to create humour, but also as a means of voicing themselves through online media in an environment where they still face many obstacles. The study argues that, as a discursive strategy, indexical disjuncture is at the very heart of Taiwanese camp.
Chapter 7 summarizes how factors offered in the theoretical framework affected Russian LGBT protest activity. There are factors that had a greater impact. Their impact and significance, however, varied on different stages of LGBT protest activity. Furthermore, factors identified in the theoretical framework develop differently in different regions due to the local governance, the level of public tolerance and perceptions of it, geographical characteristics of the regions, or the level of economic development. In Russia, more economically developed and cosmopolitan cities (Moscow and Saint Petersburg) provided necessary conditions for protesting by the mid-2000s. Necessary conditions in some other regions (e.g., Tatarstan, Samara) were achieved by the early 2010s for local activists to step toward protesting, which facilitated higher recruitment basis and wider geographical spread of LGBT protest activity. Necessary conditions in certain regions (e.g., the North Caucasus, Tyva) are still not achieved; local LGBT communities are very informal and closed. In addition, some of those regions (the North Caucasus) demonstrate higher levels of political constraints that disrupt the balance between political freedoms and repression in favor of repression. Thus, factors might develop differently in different regions across the country. And that affects the trajectory of LGBT protest activity.
In this paper, I investigate a popular Chinese term, ji-you, which can be used to refer to gay and/or straight young male friends. Discourse analysis is employed to analyze online data of people using the term ji-you. Drawing on the concept of the chronotope, I explore how ji-you can be conceptualized in terms of chronotopically organized social identities and how its cultural meanings are caught up within the contrasted chronotopes of homosocial relations among straight men, gay men, and mixed gay–straight men. The analysis demonstrates the complex and nuanced meaning-making and identity work that people perform in the construction and positioning of differing social identities of ji-you. The findings shed light on the negotiation of the ideological underpinnings of homosociality, masculinity, and heteronormativity in contemporary China.
Family is an important issue in imagining queer modes of existence. In this essay, I argue for a queer relationality that is structured around biogenetic family, a site that is often marginalized and negated in dominant Euro-American queer discourse. Informed by queer of color critique and postcolonial feminism, this essay affirms the relational framework in understanding the everyday struggles of queer subjects. Situated in the context of Chinese society, I investigate a queer relationality that centers ambivalence and inbetweenness as queer modes of positioning, challenging the teleological narrative of queerness that is characterized by oppositionality, singularity, and anti-relationality.
This essay begins with the assumption that "allies" can be and do more than that which is normatively pre-determined by institutionalized definitions of "allies." As a result, this essay implicates ally subjectivity in relational terms. Specifically, we turn to developments in queer relationality to reconceptualize of "ally" beyond the narrow confines binaristic mimesis demands. We argue normative framings of "ally" as an exclusively cisheterosexual identity modifier effectively dismiss the ways intersecting oppressions function. In turn, we articulate "ally" as a praxis-oriented posture that desires critical cultural communicative means of belonging across intersections of difference. The result is a heuristic framework used to focus relational forces animating "allies" for their potential in enacting queer worlds in and through what we term "praxis-oriented ally subjectivity."
LGBT students continue to be vastly invisible in the international higher education literature and often face hostile learning environments, both in the classroom and in the larger university environment. This study follows a narrative inquiry approach to explore and document the experiences of tongzhi–the most widely embraced identity label among individuals romantically and sexually attracted to people of their same gender in contemporary Chinese societies–students in Mainland China. We interviewed six male university students who identify as tongzhi in order to understand their educational experience, the learning environments they experience in the classroom, and their interactions with the academic staff. Despite very different individual narratives, the findings reveal a resilient student population and a strategic approach to managing complex relationships and navigating self-disclosure. We offer recommendations for future research and for practitioners invested in promoting inclusive learning environments for all students.
Recent years have witnessed an increasing academic interest in Chinese homosexuality; however, linguistic-oriented research on this topic is scant and multimodal inquiry on it is even rarer. To address the gap, this article conducts a discourse analysis of how tongzhi in mainland China are represented by news media. Specifically, we examine both linguistic and visual representations of tongzhi by utilizing two influential English-language newspapers in mainland China published between 2009 and 2019. Our data consist of 221 news articles totaling 117,407 words; 44 of the articles are accompanied with pictures. Methodologically, we draw on Halliday’s transitivity structure coupled with van Leeuwen’s classification of social actors. Our findings reveal that Chinese tongzhi are mainly represented in a negative fashion, and that there is little positive news representation of this invisible community. In addition, socio-cultural factors contributing to media representations of Chinese tongzhi are considered.
Youth in India is still a significant marginalised section of the society. To better understand marginalisation, it alludes to ways in which specific person or a whole community is shovelled beyond the edges of the general society. Many of these marginalised young sections in developing countries like India have weakened or severed family ties, subjected to social stigmatisation and are not connected to institutions such as schools, clubs and workplaces. Such "Socially marginalised" youth sections are prone to exploitation during all the stages of their life cycle as well as are striped off of their fundamental human and legal rights. This paper analyses the vulnerabilities that these marginalised youth sections are exposed to in relation to weakened social and family relationships, discrimination due to social stigmas, facing incompetence's at work place, proneness to physical and sexual abuse, walking towards the fallacious path of drugs and how social media is acting as a facilitating platform to give voice to these marginalised youth sections. This paper critically and empirically examines both constructive and destructive capacity of social media in the lives of this section as well as the future implications of this scenario.
Kinship has been the primary concern among young queer people in today's China and other parts of Asia under the strong and ongoing familism, who often find it challenging to come out and negotiate their sexuality with their parental family. This paper adopts the concept of stretched kinship to critically analyze the digital videos released by PFLAG China (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays in China) from 2015 to 2020, focusing on the experiences of the parents in their responses to young people's coming out. It both extends and challenges the concept of stretched kinship by turning the spotlight from queer youth to their parents-a topic often overlooked in queer Asian and Chinese studies-to examine how Chinese parents reject and accept their queer child contextualized in the rapid and ongoing social change in twenty-first-century China and Asia.
Developments in technology and the Internet have made modern lives more convenient, yet they also created new mediums and means for sexual offending. Video voyeurism, for one, gained increasing research attention; however, most research focused on male-on-female perpetration, where heterosexual men take photos of female victims’ private parts in public places without consent or acknowledgment (e.g., “up-skirting” and “down-blousing”). This study was the first to examine male-on-male video voyeurism in the Global South. Postings (N = 226) were collected from a large web forum dedicated to Chinese men attracted to men and its sub-section on non-consensual voyeuristic images. Neutralization theory was used to guide the data analyses. Preliminary findings suggested that 1) perpetrators obtained voyeuristic images largely through taking photos of strangers’ private body parts in public restrooms; 2) perpetrators justified their behaviors most commonly by denial of victim, such as victim-shaming, victim-blaming, claiming that the victim “had fun,” the illusion of domination, and objectification; 3) perpetrators also used metaphor of the ledger, by claiming relative inexperience or that they had become a different person since the perpetration.
An increasingly large number of Chinese straight parents joined an activist grassroots organization to advocate for gay rights in the public sphere during the last decade. They went through a multistage process of moral self-transformation and strategically employed the cultural capital of parenthood in the context of the rising neo-familism to engage the general public and negotiate with the state authority. Their advocacy work has resulted to an emergent familial model of LGBT activism in mainland China featuring the close collaboration between parents and gay children, the centrality of family relations instead of sexuality, the incorporation of LGBT activism into the neo-familism discourse and practice, and the shift from oppositional identity politics in the queer population to cooperative civic engagement with the society at large.
How do sexual minorities navigate and negotiate with nationalism? While some scholars consider nationalism as a primarily exclusionary force against sexual minorities, how might we understand sexual minorities’ engagement with nationalism? I address these questions by exploring the strategic deployment of sexual and national identities of LGBT movements through the case study of Singapore's annual LGBT‐inclusive event, Pink Dot. In response to the authoritarian and heteronormative state's construction of sexual minorities as non‐national Others, Pink Dot mobilizes both sexual and national identities in an effort to forge a space of inclusion while ensuring its survival. By portraying itself as a uniquely Singaporean event and espousing national identity and belonging through symbolic and performative practices, Pink Dot leverages national identity to minimize differences from and foreground similarities to the majority. In this way, sexual minorities in Singapore endeavor to embed themselves within the narratives of the nation and claim their legitimate belonging while simultaneously projecting a nation more inclusive of sexual difference. The aspirational inclusion of sexual minorities in the national imagery, however, inevitably elicits the state's backlash that narrowly defines the physical and symbolic boundaries of the political project. This analysis advances our understanding of the interactions between the state and social movements in shaping the relationship among the nation, sexuality, and citizenship.
This chapter looks into this question through the contested norm of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) rights. I examine the relationship between human rights and storytelling, and how the latter is being used as evidence, a mobilisation tool and means of localising the global normative packages. Moving on to the UNDP’s project Being LGBT in Asia, the first UN initiative addressing LGBT rights in the region, I trace the ways in which personal stories are chosen. Instead of training and empowering the narrators, norm translators focus on the selection and organisation of typical stories in order to highlight structural restraints in defined areas and justify normative changes. Furthermore, the selected personal stories maintain the centrality of individuals in human rights advocacy, while redefining and shifting the meaning of individuality and personhood to include local norms such as family roles.
This study aims to explore the personal changes of Chinese youth from their working holiday experiences in New Zealand. By drawing on semi-structured interviews, this study recruited thirty-four Chinese working holiday makers (WHMs) in New Zealand. A modified thematic analysis was adopted to analyze the interview transcriptions. Five themes have been developed, including independence, bravery, tolerance, marriage attitudes, and friends making. The findings of this study demonstrate the complexities and multi-dimensions of Chinese WHMs’ personal changes during their working holiday experiences and contribute to the literature by delving into the relationship between these personal changes and the social-cultural context in which they are from. The findings also offer insightful suggestions for future studies.
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