Aaron Hu and John Wei Behind the façade: Chinese Gay and Lesbian People’s Experiences in Heterosexual Marriage
Although many previous studies have demonstrated that an increasing number of Chinese gay and lesbian people entered heterosexual marriages under pressure from their parents and unfavourite attitudes toward homosexuality from society, limited research has explored their post-marital lives in heterosexual marriages. This qualitative study investigates the post-marital experiences of Chinese gay and lesbian people in heterosexual marriages, with a focus on how they navigate societal and familial expectations. Through online in-depth interviews with 20 participants from March to May of 2023, the findings based on thematic analysis reveal they "perform" authenticity in their marriages to align with traditional family values, often encountering challenges in managing relationships with children, parents, and in-laws. Financial arrangements and living situations also emerge as sources of tension as participants strive to meet external expectations while negotiating their sexual identities. The study sheds light on the complex interplay between personal identity, social norms, and familial obligations in Chinese gay and lesbian people's marital lives, providing important insights for understanding the psychological and social struggles they face.
John Wei The End of the Beginning: Ten Years of Researching (and Reflecting on) Queer Kinship
At the crossroad to actively (re)imagine the sociology to come by reflecting on the past and making sense of the present, this paper offers an intentionally self-reflective and boldly forward-looking intervention into gender and sexuality research through my own experiences of (re)searching and (re)thinking about the nature and the boundaries of family and kinship through a queer lens in a global context.
More specifically, this paper starts with a critical reflection on the beginning of my fieldwork to research queer kinship in China ten years ago in 2013 and 2014, which has then led to a decade-long and still ongoing fascination with the deeply and increasingly diverse practices and understandings of various forms of family, community, intimate relationship, and how these ontological and theoretical concepts become intimately intertwined with gender and sexuality in general, and with queer people’s lived experiences and life stories in particular.
By tracing back my journey both in the research field and in the conceptual and intellectual development of the notion of ‘stretched kinship’, which has taken on its own life (so to speak) and become a useful metaphor and practical framework for the analysis of queer life in both Asia and Aotearoa New Zealand, this paper continues to investigate and shed critical light on such issues as family, identity, intimacy, sexuality, and (above all) ‘futurity’ to break away from the limits of the past and the problematic present to actively construct a possible queer future – whatever form it may take and no matter where it may reside and manifest.
By connecting the past and the future, Asia and Aotearoa, and queer and kinship, I hope this paper can serve as a timely reflection of personal and collective memories, a reminder of the current issues and problems at hand, and a forward-looking and forward-thinking intervention into what the future may hold, both for me as a queer kinship researcher and for the sociology of family and sexuality as an ever-changing field of critical inquiry.
