Family Matters: Chinese Queer Politics around the Rise of a Family-State

LGBT activism in mainland China, based on the trajectory of identity politics, faces increasing challenges from the state in recent years. Drawing insights from the scholarship of provincializing sexual citizenship and building on my decades-long researches into Chinese LGBT communities and activism, the study situates such challenges and responses of the LGBT communities in the changing social and geopolitical context of a rising China. It first lays out the ascendance of the state-driven familial discourses and practices, mostly around the Confucian notion of “family-state”. The reconfiguration of Chinese queer politics by engaging the Chinese family-state will be the focus of the paper. On the one hand, the increasing regulation from the state further marginalizes the civic participation and mobilization around LGBT identity-politics. On the other hand, the newly emerging LGBT parent families utilize the opportunities of policy change to strive for the state’s recognition. The paper concludes by calling for more localized intervention in formulating Chinese queer politics that may have implications beyond China.

Wei Wei is a Professor of Sociology at East China Normal University, and a Visiting Scholar to Harvard-Yenching Institute, 2022-23. His research interest focuses on LGBTQ communities and activism in contemporary Chinese society. In addition to authoring two Chinese books Going Public: The Production and Transformation of Queer Spaces in Chengdu, China (2012) and Queering Chinese Society: Urban Space, Popular Culture and Social Policy (2015), he has published more than thirty articles in both English and Chinese peer-reviewed journals, including Feminist Studies, Culture, Health & Sexuality, Journal of Homosexuality, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Journal of Asian Studies, and Chinese Sociological Review.

Sponsor(s): Center for Chinese Studies