Chinese Queer Research Articles

Negotiating Performances of “Real” Marriage in Chinese Queer Xinghun

This article explores how marriage is negotiated by Chinese queer subjects who face tension between the heteronormative expectations of their families and their desire to maintain a same-sex relationship. Specifically, we critically assess the cultural performances of xinghun (形婚), or contract marriage between a gay man and a lesbian woman. Focusing on the experiences of queer Chinese women, we investigate the enactment of marriage and gender dynamics in xinghun. Our analysis of personal accounts and online discourse in personal ads shows how Chinese queer subjects perform the “realness” of heteronormativity in their queer marriages. We argue that xinghun is an ambivalent cultural formation that at once reproduces heteronormativity and contests gender and sexual norms in a heteropatriarchal society.

The ebb and flow of female homoeroticism in the online Chinese queer fandom of Super Voice Girl (2006)

Abstract Super Voice Girl (SVG) was an Idol-style Chinese reality show that allowed only female contestants. The show became famous worldwide for featuring gender-nonconforming contestants. This article examines the rise and fall of the most popular online Chinese queer fandom of the 2006 SVG in the forum feise chaonv (FSCN). I focus on the fans’ ambivalent play with Chinese-specific female homoerotic imaginaries that initially popularized and protected but eventually led to the decay of FSCN as a queer fantasy space. First, I look at the subtle ways in which the 2006 SVG tactically normalized the female homoerotic imaginaries surrounding its tomboyish national finalists. Then, I examine FSCN fans’ struggles with both this female homoeroticism and the stigmatization of real-world lesbianism. I demonstrate that the fictional imagination of female homoeroticism sustained FSCN as a popular queer fantasy space after the show ended. Additionally, I detail the fans’ self-contradictory reactions to several real-life lesbian incidents involving the finalists that gradually came to light in the post-show years. I argue that the fans’ confinement of female homoeroticism to a youthful, memorable fantasy scenario that was substantially shaped by both Chinese mainstream and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender cultures eventually contributed to the abrupt end of FSCN’s queer-themed practices.

From "celluloid comrades" to "digital video activism”: queer filmmaking in postsocialist China

Although homosexuality was decriminalised in 1997 and partially depathologised in 2001, LGBTQ issues are still strictly censored in Chinese media. With the rapid growth of China’s LGBTQ community, an increasing number of independent films featuring LGBTQ issues have emerged in the past two decades. In this article, I trace a brief history of queer cinema in the People’s Republic of China in the postsocialist era (1978 to present). In particular, I chart the significant turn from ‘celluloid comrades’, i.e. queer people being represented by heterosexual identified filmmakers in an ambiguous way, to what leading Chinese queer filmmaker Cui Zi’en calls ‘digital video activism’, in which LGBTQ individuals and groups have picked up cameras and made films about their own lives. In doing so, I unravel the politics of representation, the dynamics of mediated queer politics and the political potential of queer filmmaking in China. I suggest that in a country where public expressions of sexualities and demands for sexual rights are not possible, queer filmmaking has become an important form of queer activism that constantly negotiates with government censorship and the market force of commercialisation. Rather than representing a pre-existing identity and community, queer films and filmmaking practices have brought Chinese gay identities and communities into existence.

Queer Bodies, Queer Lives in China English Contact Literature

Abstract Ha Jin and his works have contributed significantly to world Englishes knowledge, both through direct scholarly engagement with contact literatures and through the linguistic creativity exhibited in his works of fiction (Jin 2010). His fiction writing also acts as a site of scholarly inquiry (e.g., Zhang 2002). Underexplored, however, are how local varieties of English as used to create queer identities. This paper will seek to address this gap by exploring how Ha Jin created queer spaces in his short story “The Bridegroom.” This investigation will utilize a Kachruvian world Englishes approach to analyzing contact literatures (B. Kachru 1985, 1990, Y. Kachru & Nelson 2006, Thumboo 2006). This analysis will be supported by interfacing it with perspectives from the fields of queer theory and queer linguistics (Jagose 1996, Leap & Motschenbacher 2012), which will allow for a contextually sensitive understanding of queer experiences in China. This approach will enable us to examine how Ha Jin utilized the rhetorical and linguistic markers of China English to explore historical attitudes towards queerness during the post-Cultural Revolution period. These markers include the use of local idioms and culturally-localized rhetorical moves to render a uniquely Chinese queer identity.

Coming out, coming home, coming with: Models of queer sexuality in contemporary China

ABSTRACTThe authors investigate coming out and coming home as models of queer sexuality for contemporary Chinese queer subjects. Through semi-structured interviews with 13 Chinese queer subjects, the authors investigate the distinctness of the coming-out and coming-home models, their points of dissonance and consonance, and the ways in which queer subjects take them up (partially or fully, temporarily or enduringly), revise them, or reject them. Finding that interview narratives exceed the normative parameters shaped by these two models, the authors elaborate a third, distinct model—coming with—which better accounts for how some contemporary Chinese queer subjects are crafting livable lives.

We can only be healthy if we love ourselves: Queer AIDS NGOs, kinship, and alternative families of care in China

ABSTRACTIn this article, I draw from recent developments in the anthropological literatures on kinship and care to complicate and extend analyses of Chinese queer NGOs and AIDS activism. By highlighting the practical, moral, and political dimensions of daily life and work within Chinese queer NGOs, I argue that they constitute what I call “alternative families of care” by serving as important sources of material and emotional support and care for queer men, including increasing numbers of HIV-positive men who have sex with men, in a social climate that is still largely unsupportive and hostile toward both queerness and people living with HIV/AIDS. I also show how HIV/AIDS prevention and care are additionally regarded by many Chinese queer activists as an important political strategy for demonstrating the responsibility of queer men in the face of the AIDS crisis, achieving greater recognition from the government and society, and eventually attaining increased rights, including same-sex marriage.

Approaching transnational Chinese queer stardom as zhongxing (‘neutral sex/gender’) sensibility

Abstract A generation of female queer stars has emerged in post-millennial transnational Chinese popular culture. They have amassed many female followers. Among these stars are Mainland China’s Chris Lee, Hong Kong’s Denise Ho and Taiwan’s Jing Chang. These celebrities are often characterized as ‘zhongxing’, which literally means ‘neutral sex and/or gender’, because of their non-normative gender and ambiguous sexual representation. This article aims to develop a lens to approach this emergence of queer stars and its sociocultural implications. Considering the genealogy of zhongxing and its historical relevance and taking on the reflections of Anglo-American queer theory, this article justifies the use of zhongxing over the usual English term ‘androgyny’. Recent media scholarship on Chinese queer stardom has provided an insightful entry point to this phenomenon. In this article, zhongxing is conceptualized as a sensibility for its liminal status as a non-identity category and non-sexual practice. It is ambiguous but also gradually being stabilized and shaped as specific forms of embodiment, a quest for individuality and reflexive authenticity, and an emerging queer feeling. The potentiality of zhongxing sensibility, as suggested by preliminary interview data, invites further research in the affective texture of everyday life and the transforming contours of gender and sexuality in transnational Chinese societies.

II. Young activists, new movements: Contemporary Chinese queer feminism and transnational genealogies

In 2012, in response to victim-blaming statements by the Shanghai Subway System online, two young feminists appeared in Shanghai’s subway, wearing headscarves, short skirts, and metal bras, carrying signs saying ‘‘I can be flirtatious, you can’t harass,’’ as a resistance to social control of women’s bodies (Phillips, 2012). This small performance inspired a storm of national media coverage and public discussion, giving unprecedented public visibility to the issues of women’s sexual expression and sexual assault. Being part of a broader milieu of young Chinese feminists protesting through various forms of public performance arts in the past two years, the Shanghai Subway protesters, in particular, were queer feminist activists with years of involvement in lesbian communities. As young, diasporic feminist activist–scholars involved in queer feminist movements across China, Taiwan, and New York City, we reflect on the emergent ‘‘new’’ queer feminism in China today, with its amorphous cohesion and dramatic impact, as highlighted by the subway protest. Drawing on transnational feminism, we are part of this latest ‘‘new’’ response to growing global inequalities and

Queer Politics in China: A Conversation with “Western” Activists Working in Beijing

U L I S E S M O R E N O T A B A R E Z [ U M T ] : This project aims to provide perspectives on queer activism in China. This piece is an edited transcript of an interview/conversation with activists who have experience with Chinese queer organizing groups. This project addresses gaps in knowledge available to activists and scholars in the “West” about the complexities and diversity of queer activism in China. Addressing these knowledge gaps for Western audiences is important given that China, and by extension queer communities therein, are often homogenized, if not rendered invisible in mainstream Western discourse inside and outside China. Along the same line and aligned with QED’s mission, this conversation provides experienced perspectives on how queer worldmaking praxis unfolds in China, a sometimes elusive geopolitical context even to those working within its ranks. This project is specific to queer activists mainly working in Beijing but also on projects that extend to broader regions of mainland China and, in some cases, overseas Chinese diaspora. The participants each maintain different levels of insider/ outsider status in relation to China and the Western world, meaning that our experiences place us each in different locations on that spectrum from insider to outsider. We use the demarcation “Western,” in quotation marks, to signal a balancing act between our insider and outsider positions. Not all the participants are from Western countries, but we all have attended, are

Embodied Visions: Chinese Queer Experimental Documentaries by Shi Tou and Cui Zi'en

This article explores the visual representation of minority (especially queer) identities in the highly stylized and experimental documentaries of independent filmmakers Shi Tou and Cui Zi'en, two of the most prominent cultural figures in the Chinese queer community. My analysis focuses on Shi's documentary 50 Minutes of Women (2005) and Cui's semi-documentary Night Scene (2003) in conjunction with discussions of Shi's paintings and Cui's queer science fiction as well as his other video works such as The Narrow Path (2003) and Shi Tou and That Nana (2005). Through a close examination of the intimately embodied vision, haptic camera, reflexive performances, as well as subjectivized editing strategies manifest in their works, I demonstrate that Shi and Cui not only present alternative perspectives on identity issues from inside the queer communities but, more significantly, they practice a boldly performative and intimately engaged mode of documentary filmmaking and in the process challenge the very distinction between documentary and fiction, truth and opinion, self and other. Their embodied approaches not only demonstrate the potential of minority discourses to actively and critically engage social reality but also represent an important direction — that of increasing reflexivity — for the continued development of documentary filmmaking in China.

LGBT transnational identity and the media

List of Figures Acknowledgements Preface Introduction C.Pullen PART I: POLITICS & CITIZENSHIP LGBT Transnational Documentary 'Becoming' C.Pullen Trauma and Triumph: Documenting Middle Eastern Gender and Sexual Minorities in Film and Television S.Habib & R.Beirne Transsexual in Iran: A Fatwa for Freedom? S.Bluck Sub-Sahara African Sexualities, Transnational HIV/AIDS Educational Film and the Question of Queerness D.O.Harvey The Floating/Fleeting Spectacle of Transformation: Queer Carnival, Gay Pride and the Renegotiation of Post-Apartheid Identities E.Van Der Wal The Argentinean Movement for Same-Sex Marriage M.Cooper The Politics of Reclaiming Identity: Representing the Mak Nyahs in Bukak Api A.Hock Soon Ng PART II: ADAPTATION & POST COLONIAL TRANSITIONS Queer (Im)possibilities: Alaa Al-Aswany and Wahid Hamed's The Yacoubian Building S.Selvick Andrew Salkey, James Baldwin and the Case of the 'Leading Aberrant': Early Gay Narratives in the British Media K.Houlden The Exotic Erotic: Queer Representations in the context of post-colonial ethnicity on British TV P.Bradley Documenting the Queer Indian: The Question of Queer Identification in Khush and Happy Hookers B.J.Renninger Screening Queer India in Pratibha Parmar's Khush D.Farr & J.Gauthier PART III: PERFORMANCE & SUBJECTIVITY Gay pornography as Latin American queer his/toriography G.Subero Quo Vadis, Queer Vato? Queer and Loathing in Latino Cinema R.Reitsma Queer Art of Parallaxed Document: Visual Discourse of Docudrag in Kutlug Ataman's Never My Soul! (2001) C.Cakirlar The Drag Queers the S/He Binary: Subversion of Heteronormativity in Turkish Context S.Eertin If Art Imitated Reality: George Takei, Coming Out, And The Insufferably Straight Star Trek Universe B.E.Drushel A Chinese Queer Discourse: Camp and Alternative Desires in the Films of Yon Fan and Lou Ye J.Ho Ka-Hang Index

Ten Years of Queer Cinema in China

“Ten Years of Queer Cinema in China” is a photo memoir with twenty photographs and commentary that documents two important cultural events rarely mentioned in US discussions of Chinese underground cinema. They are the First Chinese Gay and Lesbian Film Festival held at Beijing University in November of 2001 and the February 2001 screening of Andrew Cheng's Shanghai Panic (2001). Both events mark the moment when queer cultural activists began organizing their own events and establishing their singular film culture. What is unique about this period in Chinese cultural history is that Chinese queer cinema played an important role in the broader movement for Chinese personal and artistic freedom. During 2001 and 2002, Chinese were attending the same underground film events. They heard about them on the Internet or by word of mouth. Some traveled a long distance to attend them. And this led to an emerging sense of community and sometimes a collective euphoria about embracing a new culture that openly challenges repressive social boundaries.

Mobile intimacies in the queer Sinophone films of Cui Zi'en

ABSTRACTQueer Sinophone cinema includes queer Chinese cinemas outside of China, and queer Chinese films in China that are beneficiaries of peripheral Chinese and global western queer film markets. Located in the margins of Chinese heteronormativity, queer Sinophone cinema questions the ontology of kinship and new queer subjectivities that are produced by the global reordering of Chinese modernity. This article examines the cinema of China's foremost gay film-maker, Cui Zi'en, as an example of queer Sinophone cinema. In particular, it analyses two films, Refrain (2006) and The Narrow Path (2004), to critically consider how Cui's films exploit the discourse of mobile intimacy to reveal gay intimacy as a site of movement between sign, image and constituency; straight and queer men; and ethics of exposure and concealment. As intimate and excentric to Chinese heteronormativity, these films articulate and question how emancipatory and regulatory neo-liberal Chinese gay identities are governed and challenged.

Beyond the Strai(gh)ts: Transnationalism and Queer Chinese Politics

In the introduction to the special issue, the guest editors examine the key issues in the current dialogue on Chinese politics and transnational queer formations. The editors explain the origins of the special volume in a transnational queer conference, emphasizing that the volume is not merely a scholarly reflection on the changing meanings of transnational Chinese queer politics, but the result of an effort to build such transnational connections. The scholars, activists, and artists in the volume come from a wide range of locations and backgrounds. Some are based in China; others are in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Taiwan. Some write in a more academic idiom, while others report directly from their experiences. The diverse answers they bring to the question of how transnationalism has transformed queer Chinese politics today indicate that both “Chineseness” and “queer” are highly contested, overdetermined, heterogeneous, and mobile terms. By showing how boundaries are crossed at all times, the contributors highlight the ways in which transnational queer Chinese politics might contribute to the decolonization of U.S.-dominated theory.