The sexual in Chinese sociology:

homosexuality studies in contemporary

China

Travis S.K. Kong

Abstract

Through a meta-literature review, this paper examines the changing contours of

Chinese sociology of homosexuality in contemporary China. It unfolds the different
theoretical orientations and methodologies that construct the modern male homo-
sexual subject under major socio-economic and political changes. Chinese sociology
of homosexuality started in the reform era and has been dominated by Western
knowledge production and the political ideology of the communist party-state. Fused
with the bio-medical model and the state’s modernization project in the 1980s–1990s,
the sociological study adopted a functionalist and positivistic approach with survey-
based methodology in the main which focused on the etiology of homosexuality. A
new transnational knowledge production of sociology of homosexuality has formed
since the 2000s which has shifted towards a constructivist/ post-structuralist ap-
proach and reflexive qualitative methodology. The new sociological study examines
the rise of male (as well as female) homosexual identity in China, questions the
hetero/homosexual binary and discusses how an individual makes sense of homo-
sexual identity to form same-sex intimate relationships. By tracing the epistemology
of homosexuality in contemporary China, this paper rethinks the dominance of the
Western construction and the role of the state in shaping the knowledge of homo-
sexuality and proposes alternative spaces for theorizing Chinese sexual identities,
desires and practices.
Keywords: sociology of homosexuality, Chinese sociology, Chinese sexology,
knowledge production, queer Asian studies

Introduction

The science that studies sex is called sexology and the core of it is sexual medicine.
(Ruan, 1988: 4; author translation)

. . . homosexuality is unnatural and is against the normal biological and psychological

human development. They (homosexuals) are facing a lot of social, moral, legal,
economic and etiological problems and have serious consequences. (Liu, 1988: 87;
author translation)
The Sociological Review, Vol. 64, 495–514 (2016) DOI: 10.1111/1467-954X.12372

C 2016 Sociological Review Publication Limited.

Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street,
Malden, MA 02148, USA
Travis S.K. Kong

. . . sexuality study, especially in the field of sociology should be based on the indige-
nous understanding of the sexual issues and concerns, communicate with the western
theories and studies critically and selectively, deconstruct over-medicalization and
focus on the sexuality in Chinese social and political context based on daily, bodily
and diverse experience. (Pan and Huang, 2007: 194)

How can we understand male same-sex relations in contemporary China?

What does it mean if a Chinese man calls himself tongxing lian or tongxing’
ai (‘same-sex love’, or homosexual), gay (or lala for lesbian), or tongzhi (a
synonym for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, or LGBT)? This article
seeks to examine the changing contours of Chinese sociology of homosexuality
in contemporary China, and in doing so, suggests that its development has
been shaped by cultural and political considerations at different historical
moments. The first and long-dominant frame for understanding homosexuality
can be traced to Western biological and medical science, commonly known
as Western sexology with its root in the writings of Richard von Krafft-Ebing,
Sigmund Freud, Haverlock Ellis, Alfred Kinsey and Masters and Johnson.
It was first adopted in the Republican era (1912–49), became the official
state discourse of sexuality during the Mao period (1949–76) and then
guised in the national public health framework since the reform era (1978–).
This discourse was later to be incorporated in early sociological studies of
sexuality.
Sociology was first introduced in China in the late 19th century, but early
Chinese sociologists did not pay much attention to sexuality as it was deemed
to be in the realm of medicine, biology or psychology. During the Mao pe-
riod, sociology was officially banned and later rehabilitated in the reform era.
Because of this, sociology of sexuality (or ‘sexual sociology’), unlike the West
where it emerged in the 1960s, did not emerge as a distinctive area within
sociology until the mid-1980s.
It is in this context that this article examines the emergence and devel-
opment of Chinese sociology of homosexuality in reform China through
a meta-literature review. Reviewed literature includes major English and
Chinese social sciences books and journal articles on homosexuality since the
1980s. Studies of homosexuality in China focus overwhelmingly on men and
the study of female same-sex intimacy was and remains as a minor theme. It
is until recently that the studies have become more diversified that exclusive
study of female same-sex experiences has emerged since the 2000s. This paper
theorizes Chinese sociology of homosexuality based on the literature, thus on
male same-sex experiences in the main, but has made remarks on female same-
sex experiences. After a brief discussion of the early (mainly sexological) study
of homosexuality in the Republican and the Mao periods, I will argue that the
development of sociology of homosexuality has been dominated by Western
knowledge production (eg Western sexology, American-led sociology) and the
political ideology of the communist party-state. These shape the different the-
oretical orientations and methodologies that construct the male homosexual

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subject under major socio-economic and political changes over the past four
decades: In the 1980s to 1990s, heavily shaped by the bio-medical model and the
state’s modernization project, sociology of homosexuality adopted a function-
alist and positivistic approach with quantitative and survey-based methodology
in the main, focusing on the etiology of homosexuality with strong clinical im-
plications. Since the 2000s, a transnational knowledge production has emerged,
facilitated by the state’s opening up to the global capital and knowledge pro-
duction while confined under its dictatorship. Sociology of homosexuality has
slowly departed from the bio-medical model. Theoretically informed by con-
structivism, queer theory and/or feminism and methodologically inclined to
reflexive qualitative methodology, it has started to study the homosexual from
a different angle: it examines which socio-historical conditions give rise to the
modern forms of male (as well as female) homosexual identities, questions
the hetero/homosexual binary that constructs the self, and discusses how an
individual makes sense of such an identity (eg coming out) and forms intimate
same-sex relationships within the Chinese family institution under the context
of Chinese modernity.
By tracing the changes of sociological discourses of the construction of
male same-sex desires in contemporary China through a meta-literature re-
view, this article (1) rethinks the dominance of the Western construction and
the role of the state in shaping the knowledge of homosexuality; (2) facil-
itates a critical dialogue between English and Chinese writings in shaping
Chinese homosexuality; and (3) conjoins the emerging queer Asian studies
with the aim of decentring the dominant Western sexual knowledge paradigm
while creating alternative spaces for theorizing Chinese sexual identities,
desires and practices.

The birth of the homosexual in modern China

The arrival of sociology and bio-medical science and the medicalization of

same-sex relations
Ancient China had a rich literature of strong male homosocial culture (Louie,
2002), a tolerance of men with same-sex desires (Van Gulik, 1961: 62–63;
Samshasha, 1984; Ruan and Tsai, 1987; Hinsch, 1990), and an admiration of
men who possessed feminine beauty (Song, 2004). The reason for this tolerance
of male same-sex relations may be that cultural expectations of male sexuality
were concerned with conformity to power hierarchies. Behaviours that might
be considered inappropriate were permitted as long as the man maintained his
social obligations to the family (ie, getting married and bearing children) and
avoided excessive sexuality (eg masturbation, prostitution). In other words,
masculinity was understood less as sexual identity or orientation and more as
a familial and social role, such as being a filial son with the ability to control
sexuality. The stories of yutao (‘the peach reminder’) and duanxiu (‘the cut
sleeve’) present the two most famous and commonly cited euphemisms among


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Travis S.K. Kong

the literati for male homosexuality in Chinese history. Although there was
a celebrated rich homoerotic tradition, homosexuality was always seen as pi
(an obsession), peripheral to the gendered hierarchies of the Confucian family
and marriage institutions (Kang, 2009; Kong, 2011: 151–152). Female same-sex
intimacy remained separate from the male homosexual tradition and was gen-
erally seen as negligible and insignificant in the patriarchal familial organization
(but celebrated in erotic literature) in ancient China (Ruan and Bullough, 1992:
218–221; Sang, 2003).
Homoerotic practices were enjoyed for a long period through history, up
to the Qing Dynasty (AD 1644–1911) and ended with the impact of modernity
(Hinsch, 1990). Republican China was a time of intense nationalism and state
building with the threats of both internal political warfare and Western im-
perial power. Fused with social Darwinism and the belief that ‘scientism’ and
‘democracy’ could save the nation, many Chinese intellectuals in the early 20th
century were keen to import Western ideas and criticize traditional Chinese
thought such as Confucianism.
Sociology was first introduced to China in the late 19th century and modern
elites either studied in the West and/or Japan. They were keen to translate
Western writings (eg Herbert Spencer’s The Study of Sociology) into Chi-
nese. Chinese sociology in pre-1949 fell into two camps: Comtian or bour-
geois sociology emphasized idealism, social pathology and reform, and em-
pirical research methods, whereas Marxist sociology focused on historical
materialism, the unity of theory and practice, and class analysis. Both of
these traditions involved efforts to sinicize sociology and a Chinese sociology
slowly emerged in the late 1930s (Cheng and So, 1983; Dai, 1993; Zheng and
Li, 2000).
Sexuality did not catch the attention of Chinese sociologists in the Repub-
lican period as it was seen to be in the realm of medicine, biology or psychol-
ogy. However, sexuality was indeed a heated subject more generally among
Chinese intellectuals who turned to Western bio-medical knowledge to un-
derstand Chinese sexual behaviours. Scholarly journals (eg China Medical
Journal), periodicals (eg Xing Zazhi [The Sex Periodical], Xingyu Zhoubao
[The Sexual Desire Weekly], Xing Sanrikan [The Sex Journal Biweekly], Xing-
bao [The Sex Journal]), and other lay texts such as handbooks and marriage
guides (Dikötter, 1995) as well as tabloid newspapers (eg Shanghai’s Jingbao
[Crystal] and Tianjin’s Tianfengbao [Heavenly Wind]) (Kang, 2009) were abun-
dant in openly discussing the issues of sexuality. Modern Chinese intellectuals
were also keen to translate major Western sexological texts (eg Richard von
Krafft-Ebing, Edward Carpenter, Sigmund Freud, Haverlock Ellis, Magnus
Hirschfeld), often mediated through the Japanese translation, into Chinese.
The term ‘sex’ and ‘homosexuality’ were translated from Western sexology
through the Japanese translation sei and doseiai into Chinese xing and tongx-
ing’ ai (tongxing lian’ai, or tongxing lian) respectively. Homosexuality was
translated as ‘same-sex love’ (tongxing’ai, tongxing lian’ai, or tongxing lian),
which is a gender neutral term referring to both male and female homosexuality
(Sang, 2003: 100–106).
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Medical science was central to promoting the nation’s revival by disciplin-

ing individual sexual desire, eliminating evil habits and regulating couples’
sexual behaviour (Dikötter, 1995). It is in this context that homosexuality was
scrutinized, notably through many debates in the 1930s, for example, whether
homosexuality was right or wrong, whether it was a personal or social prob-
lem, or whether it could be cured or not (see Kang, 2009: 43–49 for the debate
between Hu Qiuyuan and Yang Youtian, and Chiang, 2010: 634–647 for the
debate between Zhang Jingsheng and Pan Guangdan). Female same-sex love
was seen as abnormal and a threat to patriarchal power on the one hand and
intense affectionate attachments between women on the other (Sang, 2003;
Hershatter, 2007: 40–41). However, it is the English sexologist Havelock Ellis’s
medical theory of homosexuality dichotomizing sexual normality and devia-
tion that gained hegemony through repeated citation and translation from the
1920s onwards. Its dominant status was mainly established after Pan Guang-
dan, an American-trained eugenicist, sociologist and teacher of Fei Xiaotong,
who translated the book into Chinese in 1930 (Pan, 1986: 1–7). Ellis’s ideas
became the orthodox understanding of homosexuality in modern China.

The official ban of sociology, bio-medical science as the state’s official discourse
of sexuality and the silencing of homosexuality
With the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949,
the Mao period was characterized by revolutionary passion and class strug-
gle. Academic disciplines were subordinated to the organizing principles of
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and the overarching goal of socialist development
(Jeffreys and Yu, 2015: 151). Sociology was banned in 1952 for three main
reasons: (1) the orthodox Comtian sociology which regarded social revolution
as ‘abnormal change’ was criticized, especially by Mao Zedong, as an obstacle
to socialist development; (2) Chinese universities followed the Soviet system.
As the Soviet Union banned sociology in the 1920s, the new China followed
suit; and (3) sociology was seen as ‘unnecessary’ as a socialist society had no so-
cial problems (Zheng and Li, 2000: 176–179). Marxist sociology (not the study
of Marxism) was the legitimate paradigm in which historical materialism and
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism were the only valid theories to understand society
and history. Sociology departments closed and faculty migrated to other dis-
ciplines, including ethnology, history, labour economics and philosophy (Lee
and Shen, 2009: 111). During the anti-rightist movement (1957) and Cultural
Revolution (1966–76), intellectuals (eg Pan Guangdan) often became targets
of political torture (Bian and Zhang, 2008: 21; Rocha, 2012). Critical studies of
social issues were absent, not to mention studies of sexuality or homosexuality.
Western medical science became the official state discourse of sexuality.
According to Evans (1995), the state extensive official publications on female
sexuality during the 1950s and early 1960s promoted a model of reproduc-
tive sex within monogamous heterosexual marriage under the 1950 Marriage
Law which outlawed concubinage and arranged marriage. The compulsory


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heterosexual marital reproductive model not only constructed female gender

as an effect of ‘sexual difference’ and thus reinforced revolutionary puritanism,
but also left little room for other forms of sexuality (eg homosexuality, pros-
titution, pre- and extra-marital sex, pornography) that violated the natural
heterosexual order. Public discussion of (both male and female) homosexual-
ity was almost completely silenced.
In the first half of the 20th century China, Western medical science, as a
form of modern knowledge, was first used to understand same-sex relations
rendering it as a medical problem. Since the 1950s, the state has monopolized
the media and academic texts – medical, legal and educational. Western medical
science has thus become the official state discourse as well as the knowledge
foundation of sexuality (Evans, 1995: 386). Sociology disappeared. From the
1900s to 1979, a dominant sexological construction of the homosexual subject
was constructed as the ‘other’ – as a sexual perversion to be cured, as a violation
of the heterosexual order to be silenced, or as a threat to patriarchal order to
be regulated.

Sociology of homosexuality since the reform era

The first wave of sociological study of homosexuality: what makes a person

homosexual?
The reform era is characterized as gaige (market-based economic ‘reforms’)
and kaifang (‘opening up’ to the rest of the world), emphasizing economic
development, the ‘Four Modernizations’ (in the field of agriculture, indus-
try, national defence, and science and technology), marketization, agricultural
decollectivization and land reform. China, in its new turn, has, in principle,
aimed to move from a Maoist ‘rule of man’ to a modern ‘rule of law’.
Sexual culture remained profoundly conservative in the 1980s. Homosex-
uality was classified as a sexual disorder in the first version of the Chinese
Classification of Mental Disorders (CCMD) in 1978 (Wu, 2003: 128). More-
over, (mainly male) homosexuality had been increasingly associated with (and
thus penalized as) a type of liumang zui (‘hooliganism’) when hooliganism was
introduced in Article 160 of the Criminal Law in 1979 (Gao, 1995). Even though
homosexuality was not on the list, it led to many men (and a few women) being
arrested or harassed due to this (Ruan, 1991: 141; Li, 2006). During the 1980s
and the 1990s, the male homosexual oscillated between being a mental patient
and a hooligan, or both. The construction of female homosexual shared this
view but female homosexuality were commonly understood as a reaction to
abuse or neglect by men or as a compensatory sex in the absence of men (Ruan
and Bullough, 1992: 221–225; Hershatter, 2007: 41).
However, the state’s ‘opening up’ signifies an era where its control over
private life is lessened which has led to the creation of new social and sexual
spaces or even the arrival of a sexual revolution (Pan, 2006), for example, the
widespread practices of pre-marital sex, extra-marital affairs, cohabitation and

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divorce; the upsurge of blatant forms of prostitution and pornography; and

the increased public discussion on intimate issues in the mass media. It is in
this context that LGBT communities, facilitated by the LGBT network and
commerce from Hong Kong and Taiwan, have slowly emerged in urban cities
in China (Kong, 2011: 154–156).
In terms of knowledge production, Deng Xiaoping, the architect of the
reform, called for academics to help speed up the PRC’s modernization
(Dai, 1993: 92). Academic inquiry was rehabilitated. The Chinese Sociological
Association, first established in 1930, was rehabilitated in 1979. The Chinese
Academy of Social Science (CASS) was set up in 1980. Two pioneer socio-
logical journals Shehui (Chinese Journal of Sociology) and Shehuixue Yanjiu
(Sociological Studies) were established in 1981 and 1986 respectively. Since its
re-establishment, Chinese sociology has been under two major influences: the
communist party-state and American sociology. First, the state dictates soci-
ologists and policy interests inform the discipline. Sociology is thus based on
the principles of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism with the aim to establish ‘Marxist
sociology with Chinese characteristics’ for the development of socialist China
(Cheng and So, 1983; Zheng and Li, 2000: 179–185). Marxism became more
similar to indoctrination than a critical intellectual thought. Theoretical en-
gagement and knowledge accumulation are considered secondary and topics
that are considered to be sensitive (eg class, social movement) are marginalized.
As a result, Chinese sociology in the early reform era has focused overwhelm-
ingly on applied empirical research (eg large-scale survey and case studies)
with policy implications (Zhou and Pei, 1997: 570). Moreover, sociologists can
get jobs through only two means: state universities (under the Ministry of Ed-
ucation) or the Academy of Social Sciences (under Ministry of Propaganda),
both of which are under the ideological control of the government. There are
no private universities and the very few private research institutions do not
provide the same benefits as state employment. Academic publishing is strictly
controlled by the state through editorial vetting and self-censorship (Lee and
Shen, 2009: 113).
Second, due to the shift of the US–China relation since 1978 and the
US’s gain of hegemony of the global knowledge production, American so-
ciology has dominated Chinese sociology and has nurtured the intellectual
and methodological foundations for the first post-Mao generation of soci-
ologists (Lee and Shen, 2009: 112). Functionalism was the main theoretical
lens and quantitative methodology and survey research became the domi-
nant tools for Chinese sociologists. Although functionalism was considered
at odds with Marxism, its uncritical stance to power relations (eg the state)
was consistent with the state’s modernization project. ‘Marxist sociology
with Chinese characteristics’ was thus a paradoxical combination of struc-
tural functionalism with Marxism-Leninism-Maoism in order to help build a
new China.
Xing xue (‘studies of sex’, or sometimes translated as ‘sexology’) or xing
kexue (‘science of sex’ or ‘sexual science’) slowly emerged as a distinctive


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discipline in the reform era in order to contribute to Chinese modernization.

Works were mainly clustered around three types: (1) direct translations of
canonical sexological classics in order to learn from the West, such as Pan
Guangdan’s (1986) reprint of the 1944 translation of Ellis’s Psychology of Sex
with scholarly commentary; Pan Suiming’s (1989a, 1990) translation of Kinsey’s
Report: Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male and Female; (2) publication of sex
education, mainly targetting the youth, to give them ‘correct’ sex information
(eg sexual anatomy, sexual reproduction, and gender and sex roles), promote
reproductive health and ‘good’ marital sex, and identify sexual dysfunction and
sexual perversion (eg homosexuality) (Ruan, 1988: 1–4; see also Wu, 1982); (3)
the birth of xing shehuixue (‘sexual sociology’) which emphasized its impor-
tance in contributing to Chinese civilization under ‘Four modernizations’: to
build a civilized, healthy and scientific way of life; to enhance and consoli-
date good family relationships; to nurture healthy adolescent development; to
reform incorrect feudal customs and practices; and to prevent sexual crimes
and maintain social stability (Liu, 1988: 21–24; see also Pan, 1989b). Dubbing
Kinsey’s classical study on human sexual behaviour, Liu et al. (1992) provided
the first and the largest national wide survey on Chinese sexual behaviour
(n = 20,000) in contemporary China. Although these studies pioneered the
long silent topic of sexuality during the Mao period, they were very much
informed by the state-dominated bio-medical discourse of sexuality and func-
tionalism (eg emphasizing sex and gender roles and the functions of sex to the
well-being of the individual, the family and the society). It thus had a strong
sense of pathologizing sex and promoting moralistic sex education (Huang
et al., 2009). It also followed very closely within the parameters of the state’s
modernization project. Although learning from the West was important, these
sociologists were also critical of the West’s sexual revolution as ‘excessive’,
‘extreme and distorted’ (Wong, 2016).
Nevertheless, English writings flourished after the open-door reform pol-
icy, mainly by foreign scholars or Chinese scholars who studied aboard after
the reform. For example, Ruan’s work (eg Ruan and Tsai, 1987, 1988; Ruan,
1991; Ruan and Bullough, 1992) reputed the general impression that traditional
Chinese were conservative about sex by demonstrating the vibrant sexual cul-
tures, influenced by traditional Chinese thoughts (eg Confucianism, Taoism
and Buddhism), and tolerated a lot of sexual preferences, behaviours and ac-
tivities including male and female homosexuality (see also Van Gulik, 1961).
Built on Samshasha’s work (1984), Hinsch (1990) unfolded the hidden history
of male homosexuality and reconstructed the Chinese male homosexual tra-
dition over dynasties, painted a picture of Chinese homosexuality as a distinc-
tive culture and explicitly against the idea that homosexuality was a Western
import.
Publications covering sensitive or controversial topics such as homosexu-
ality have slowly emerged under this sexual science or sexual sociology but
have always been under state’s control and surveillance. Li and Wang (1992) is
seen to be the first sociological Chinese book researching male homosexuals in

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post-Mao China. The book (Their World: Looking into the Male Homosexual
Community in China) was published in Hong Kong and with a different book
title (Subculture of Homosexuality) in China in 1998. Using mixed method
(in-depth interviews (n = 49) and survey data) and Western theories, the book
first drew on world history to justify universal homosexual existence and then
investigated male homosexuals in post-Mao China: why people became ho-
mosexuals, their love and sex lives, their married lives (as most of them had
to get married), their social lives with other homosexuals, their opinions on
homosexuality (as a sin, as a disease, as a way of life), and the change of the
social status of homosexuality in China. They admitted that they were unable
to locate female respondents. In addition, Zhang (1994) provided a compre-
hensive and theoretical (but mainly medical) discussion of homosexuality – its
causes, types, behaviours, related illnesses, prevention, as well as its relation-
ship with ethics and law. An (1995) and Fang (1995) wrote two journalistic
style of reports on (mainly male) homosexuals.
Under the control of the official medical and scientific discourses on homo-
sexuality advanced by the communist party-state, this first wave of sociological
studies of homosexuality was heavily shaped by the bio-medical model and
fused with functionalist, positivistic and scientific idioms to investigate (mainly
male) homosexuals. Similar to the first strand of homosexuality studies in the
West (Stein and Plummer, 1994), the key question was ‘what makes a per-
son homosexual?’ and they sought to describe and clarify the etiologies of
homosexuality, focused on the ‘homosexual’ as an object of sociological in-
vestigation, and viewed homosexuals as members of an altogether different
culture or even species. Although they tried to humanize the homosexual, pro-
mote acceptance and weaken the language of the exotic, they tended to be
uncritical to the nature of sexuality as a social category and were concerned
more with the presentation of ‘scientific’, ‘objective’ data, usually carried out
by the presumed heterosexual and objective researchers. An essentialist and
medical approach seemed to be dominant in this period. In terms of knowl-
edge production, the writings tended to first display studies conducted by major
academic figures of Western sociology of homosexuality (mainly American so-
ciology with Alfred Kinsey as the most cited figure). This could be seen as a
way to protect themselves by positioning the theories as Western and thereby
align themselves with the ‘opening up’ policy. Second, they discussed Chinese
experience using survey data or interviews. However, theories and experiences
were often unrelated to each other during the process of analysis.

The second wave of sociological study of homosexuality: the emergence of

queer/tongzhi identity and the issue of coming out
China has shifted to what is usually called a post-socialist society since the 2000s,
which has resulted in a further lessening of state monitoring of private life and
the burgeoning of more social spaces for sexual and romantic interactions
(Jeffreys, 2006; Rofel, 2007). There have been a lot of significant socio-political


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and legal changes related to homosexuality: first, the deletion of hooliganism

from law in 1997 which implicitly ‘de-criminalized’ homosexuality (although it
was contested because homosexuality was not technically listed as hooliganism
(Guo, 2007)); second, the removal of homosexuality from the list of mental
illness in 2001 which ‘de-medicalized’ homosexuality (Wu, 2003: 133); and
third, the official recognition of the ‘existence’ of male homosexuals from
the government in 2003 due to the AIDS epidemic (He and Detels, 2005:
826). Parallel to these changes is the emergence of various LGBT consumer
markets and communities, the increasing visibility of LGBT representations
in the media and the internet (Wu, 2003: 132) and the emergence of LGBT
activism (Chase, 2012; Rofel, 2012; Chua and Hildebrandt, 2014; Engebretsen
and Schroeder, 2015). However, these new sexual spaces have always been
under surveillance, for example, frequent raids and closing down of LGBT
related venues and activities (Kong, 2011: 156; Rofel, 2012; Engebretsen and
Schroeder, 2015).
Since the 2000s, the catchphrase ‘internationalization’ or later ‘globaliza-
tion’ has been used to facilitate knowledge exchange but also enhance the
penetration of Western, especially American, knowledge production. Amer-
ican sociologists have continuously outsourced theories, methods, and the-
matic issues to their counterparts in China and have trained a large number of
Chinese students who have contributed to the development of Chinese sociol-
ogy (Bian and Zhang, 2008; Li, 2012). Even global sex research collaborations
(eg IASSCS, Queering Paradigm) have been formed. However, knowledge
production is still heavily under governmental control.
Two major trends in the study of homosexuality are prominent. First, bio-
medical science remains the dominant model but has shifted from a pathologi-
cal to a national public health framework due to the onset of HIV/AIDS. The
male homosexual subject has been re-conceptualized less as a mental patient
or social outcast (hooligan) and more as an individual at risk, characterized as
‘men having sex with men’ (MSM). This reconceptualization has a significant
implication: homosexuality can be openly discussed, examined, and researched
as long as it is framed under ‘public health’. For example, Fudan University
started a course titled ‘Homosexuality, Health and Social Science’ in 2003
which attracted many students, academics and reporters. However, its empha-
sis on the risk factor of male homosexual sexual behaviour, over-concerns with
the well-being of the general population and the alignment with the state’s
neo-liberal design of a ‘harmonious society’ have all played down the radical
edge of (homo-)sexuality studies that link sex, desire and identity to ‘politics’
and ‘human rights’, which are highly sensitive terms in China.
Although subject to its surveillance, the state’s opening up to the global
capital and knowledge production (eg numerous exchange programmes, new
generations returning from studying abroad as well as information circu-
lated on the Internet) contribute to the formation of a new transnational
knowledge production. It is in this context that the sociology of homosexu-
ality has slowly departed from the bio-medical science which offers a more

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complex and humanistic understanding of the kaleidoscopic lives of homosex-

uals although there are emerging views on this development (Wong, 2016).
Scholars have shifted away from the etiological question of ‘what makes a
person homosexual?’ to a constructionist question of examining what socio-
historical conditions give rise to the modern form of homosexual identity (eg
‘gay’, ‘lala’, or ‘tongzhi’) or a queer theory question of challenging the operation
of the hetero/homosexual binary for constructing the self. In the West, social
constructivism (1970s–) and queer theory (1990s–) emerged at different periods
but they overlap in the Chinese context. In either way, they seek to understand
the transition from homosexuality-as-same-sex-experience in ancient China to
homosexuality-as-an-identity in contemporary China (Tong, 2005; Sun et al.,
2006; Wei, 2007; Bao, 2012). They engage with social constructivism, queer
theory and/or feminism and examine how an individual makes sense of such an
identity and forms same-sex intimate relationship under China’s opening up to
cultural, sexual and economic globalization. Drawing on qualitative research
methods such as in-depth interviews, ethnography, participant observation,
scholars are collecting life stories of these men and women in urban China,
for example, Beijing (Rofel, 2007; Ho, 2010; Engebretsen, 2014), Shanghai
(Sun et al., 2006; Bao, 2012; Kam, 2013), Chengdu (Wei, 2007), Dongbei (Fu,
2012), and Guangdong (Kong, 2011: 145–173). Studies have become more di-
versified and exclusive examination of distinctive groups such as ‘lala’ (same-
sex desiring women like lesbian, bisexual, or transgender) has emerged (eg
Kam, 2013; Engebretsen, 2014). Moreover, scholars are reflective to the data
collection process and reflexive of their own position as researchers (Ho, 2010:
60–61). Some even came out during interviews and fieldtrips, collapsing the old
split between subject/researcher and the object/researched (Kong, 2011: 12–
13; Kam, 2013: 14; Engebretsen, 2014: 25; Wei, 2012: 26). The research process
becomes a political act but it also implies that only LGBT researchers could
conduct such research as they are more ‘authentic’.
The newly emerged sexual identities (‘gay’, ‘lala’ or ‘tongzhi’) have slowly
dissociated from the pathological (mental patient) and deviant (hooligan) sub-
jects and signify a new kind of humanity – individuality, difference, sophisti-
cation, liberation and modernity. These newly emerged identities have been
compared with the ‘global queer identity’ (Altman, 1997) and the question is
how to criticize the universalism of Western gay identities with political and cul-
tural hegemonies and understand Chinese queer/tongzhi identities as a social
process of discrepant transcultural practices (Rofel, 2007: 89–94; see also Ho,
2010: 15–20; Kong, 2011). Moreover, these newly emerged identities uncriti-
cally embrace the reign of cosmopolitanism and nascent capitalism. The LGBT
community sometimes serves less to enhance solidarity and identification than
it does to demarcate those who can fully access the urban and cosmopolitan
ideal from those who cannot, such as those who are poor, rural, HIV positive,
non-monogamous, selling sex, etc. A small body of work is dedicated to ‘money
boys’, the local parlance for men selling sex to other men in China, as a typical
sexual ‘other’: ‘low’ quality, ‘immoral’ and ‘unrespectable’ (Jones, 2007; Rofel,
2010; Kong, 2012; Lu, 2013).
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The major debate centres on the process and issues of coming out under
the family and marriage institution, highlighting the notion of ‘face’ and ‘filial
piety’ in the Chinese context. Scholars are aware that the Western coming
out model, usually based on a confessional model (Foucault, 1980: 53–57) and
which serves as the foundation of a confrontational identity politics, may not
be applicable in the Chinese context. One argument thus discusses the dis-
tinctiveness of Chinese coming out politics (Li and Wang, 1992; Chou, 2000).
Rather than making a verbal declaration of one’s homosexual identity as in a
Western-style coming out model, Chou (2000) argues that gays and lesbians in
China introduce a same-sex partner to the parent family where s/he would be
tacitly integrated into the family circle without disclosing the couple’s same-sex
relationship. Chou views the Chinese family kinship system as a culturally dis-
tinct, harmonious and tolerant entity and ‘coming home’ as a uniquely Chinese
approach to integrate gays’/lesbians’ personhood into the context of family re-
lationships. Drawing from queer theory, Liu and Ding (2005), Kam (2013) and
Engebretsen (2014) challenge this essentialist notion of the Chinese family and
argue that this silent tolerance of the Chinese family is an inherent violence
against gays and lesbians. Liu and Ding (2005) refer to this as a ‘politics of ret-
icence’ as it is a ‘sufficiently effective form of homophobia and discrimination’
(2005: 49) which not only makes the repressed subject silent but also erases it
entirely from sight. In other words, silence can be ‘a violent form of symbolic
erasure’ (Kam, 2013: 92; for a summary of the debate, see Martin, 2015).
The recent debate focuses on the strategies gays and lesbians use to handle
the pressure to marry. Instead of being single or living with a same-sex partner
as commonly found in the West, gay men and lesbians in China take two major
routes – the first is to get married with a heterosexual woman or man and
either suppress their same-sex desires or have a secret homosexual life outside
marriage; and the second, cooperative marriage in which a gay man marries
a lesbian (Wei and Cai, 2012; Kam, 2013; Engebretsen, 2014). Although this
discussion of coming-out politics (and the corresponding marriage strategies)
is usually framed as resistance to heteronormativity, it is precisely the Chinese
construction of the relational (as opposed to Western individualized) self that
apparently enables them to create multiple self-formations.
Identity, coming out and forming relationships are the main topics, yet
other issues have been studied such as space and desire (Wei, 2009, 2012;
Fu, 2012), sexual citizenship (Kong, 2011), and sexual politics and activism
(Engebretsen and Schroeder, 2015), all of which are a part of the latest debates
in sexuality studies worldwide, as discussed by Plummer (2015). In the course
of the knowledge production process, these issues are critical to hegemonic
Western knowledge production and sensitive to the tension between Chinese or
English language discourses in constructing the knowledge of homosexuality,
produced by Chinese and non-Chinese researchers, and the assumed English
or Chinese target audience (Pan and Huang, 2007: 190–191; see also Huang
and Pan, 2009; Wang, 2011). For writing in English, they use Western concepts
and ideas even though they are sensitive to how these ideas can be understood

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in the local context. For writing in Chinese, they struggle with how to translate
the Western ideas (eg ‘sexuality’) into Chinese (Pan, 2005: 7–30) and discuss
which local terms to adequately describe indigenous experiences, for example,
yuanfen (‘fateful coincidence’) in understanding romance, and xingfu (‘sexual
happiness’) in understanding the quality of individual happiness (Pan and
Huang, 2007: 187–190).

Queer/tongzhi knowledge and activism

In the West, gay/lesbian or queer research is closely aligned with politics and
activism. Notable scholars include Ken Plummer, Jeffrey Weeks, Dennis Alt-
man, Christine Delphy and Stephen Whittle, just to name a few. But it is much
more difficult to combine theory with activism in China. As said before, the
government dictates academic studies. However, a few sociologists do try to
combine theory with activism. Li Yinhe was the most famous sociologist in
China working at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences until her retirement
in 2012. She proposed same-sex marriage to the National People’s Congress,
though her proposals were turned down many times. Pan Suiming and his
student Huang Yingying from Renmin University have been organizing bian-
nual conferences and workshops on sexuality since 2007 to facilitate exchanges
among local and overseas academics as well as NGO staff and activists con-
cerning LGBT, sex workers, and HIV/AIDS issues. However, queer/tongzhi
activists have to take their own risks as they have to be ‘creative, thoughtful,
flexible and nimble in relation to where the government draws the line be-
tween what is permissible and what is not’ (Rofel, 2012: 158). Recently, five
Chinese feminists, who are known for their work and advocacy on women’s
and LGBT rights, were detained after planning to highlight sexual harassment
on International Women’s Day in March 2015. They were later released but
are still under police surveillance.

Discussion and conclusion

This article examined the emergence of sociology of homosexuality in con-

temporary China and has argued that its development has been shaped by
socio-economic and political conditions at different historical moments: from
intense nationalism and state building in the Republican era to revolution
and class struggle in the Mao period to the opening up in the early reform
era, and finally, to globalization in the present post-socialist state. The first
and long-dominant frame for understanding homosexuality is Western bio-
logical and medical science, which was first adopted in the Republican era
and which viewed male homosexual as a sexual perversion. It later became
the official state discourse of sexuality in the Mao period and silenced male
homosexuality as a deviant case of normal (hetero-) sexuality. Since the re-
form era, the major discursive frame embraced a national public health model
and conceptualizes male homosexuals from a mental patient/hooligan to a


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high risk group. The construction of the female homosexual follows a similar
trend, that is, seen as abnormal or a threat to patriarchal order in the Repub-
lican and Mao periods. In the early reform era, female homosexuals were also
considered as a mental patient/hooligan but were commonly understood as a
reaction to abuse or neglect by men or as compensatory sex in the absence
of men. These discourses were incorporated in early sociological studies of
sexuality.
Sociology of homosexuality as a distinctive area within sociology started
in the reform era. Early study (1980s–1990s) focused overwhelmingly on male
homosexuals. Over the past 40 years, the study has been dominated by Western
knowledge and controlled by the political ideology of the state. Under the bio-
medical paradigm and the state’s modernization project in the 1980s–1990s, the
first wave of sociological study of homosexuality adopted a more functionalist,
positivistic and essentialist approach, employed largely quantitative and survey
research methodology, and focused on the etiology and pathology of homosex-
uality with the key question of ‘what makes a person homosexual?’ Presumed
heterosexual and objective scholars ‘discovered’ homosexuals and researched
them as the ‘other’ to the presumably heterosexual ‘normal’ population. The
writings tended to display studies conducted by major academic figures of
Western sociology of homosexuality and then discussed Chinese experience
using survey data or interviews. During the process of analysis, theories and
experiences were often unrelated to each other. Heavily dominated by what
Connell (2015) calls a ‘pyramidal model’, Western theory is considered as uni-
versal and Chinese experience is just a particular case to supplement Western
propositions.
Since the 2000s, the state continues to enable and limit the develop-
ment of the sociology of homosexuality – creating a new space for (homo-)
sexuality studies under ‘internationalization’ or ‘globalization’ (eg exchange
programmes, overseas study) whilst confining its development within post-
socialist and authoritarian parameters (eg dictatorship and self-censorship).
Endorsed by the state, the medical and public health paradigm of studying
homosexuality is still dominant, yet a new body of transnational work has
emerged which shifts to constructivism, queer theory and feminism as its theo-
retical orientation and turns methodologically to reflexive qualitative research
(eg in-depth interviews, ethnography). Etiological and pathological discourses
give way to socio-psychological and cultural-political discourses. A sociological
construction of the homosexual subject has shifted from a mental patient or
social deviant in the 1980s to a different person in the 1990s to a cosmopoli-
tan and suzhi (‘quality’) citizen in the 2000s. This bulk of work has started
to examine the modern forms of both male and female homosexual identity,
challenge the hetero-homosexual binary, and discuss how an individual makes
sense of such an identity (eg coming out) and forms an intimate same-sex
relationship within the Chinese family institution. These studies are more sen-
sitive to the ‘global queer identity’ and the Western coming out model in
framing Chinese identities, experiences, rhetoric and politics. They are more

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critical of mainstream sociology and incorporate radical thoughts in their writ-

ings and are reflective to the ways they do sexuality research. A few even came
out from their research and wrote their own stories of self-representation.
Some have engaged with queer/tongzhi activism though they are struggling
within the state’s surveillance and control.
Through an examination of the Chinese sociology of homosexuality, it is
clear that Western theory of homosexuality and the political ideology of the
state have been hegemonic in China. Western sexology as a form of bio-medical
model has been dominant, as a solution to diagnose social and national prob-
lems in the Republican era, as the official knowledge adopted by the state
in the Mao period, and as the form of sexual science guised in the national
public health paradigm in the reform era. Chinese sociology of homosexuality
has been heavily shaped by this paradigm and later by the Western sociolog-
ical/anthropological paradigm, both of which are subject to the state’s mod-
ernization project (1980s–1990s) and later globalization project (2000s–). It is
only recently that the dominance of the Western knowledge system has been
challenged.
A growing body of work has attempted to decentre the Western form of
universal knowledge in sociology (eg Qi, 2014; Connell, 2015). Queer Asian
studies follow similar patterns (eg Johnson et al., 2000; Chu and Martin, 2007;
Martin et al., 2008; Liu and Rofel, 2010; McLelland and Mackie, 2014). Martin
et al. (2008: 6) articulate three approaches: ‘global homogenization’ in which
the sexual Westernization on a global scale triggers the ‘Rest’ to imitate, appro-
priate, or resist the West; ‘local essentialism’ in which traditional cultures are
seen as ‘repositories of presumptively authentic, local sexual identities’; and
‘queer hybridization model’ in which ‘both Western and non-Western cultures
of gender and sexuality have been, and continue to be, mutually transformed
through their encounters with transnationally mobile forms of sexual knowl-
edge’. Neither a wholesale adaption of a Westernization approach (eg ‘global
homoegenization’) nor a separatist approach (eg ‘local essentialism’) seems
to be satisfactory. Scholars working in Asia have acknowledged the fact that
the West has entered the history and become part of Asia. The task is to seek
ways to understand the complex process of Western, local and inter-regional
knowledge systems in shaping experiences in specific sites in Asia and engage
in a critical dialogue with the West and within Asia.
The recent Chinese sociology of homosexuality seems to exemplify the
‘queer hybridization model’. It critically applies Western theory and avoids
the reductiveness of earlier approaches (‘global homogenization’ and ‘local
essentialism’) and tries to explore the complex processes of tongzhi identi-
ties, experiences and sexual cultures under the influence of the state in China
in an increasingly networked world. It thus contributes to the political econ-
omy of sexuality. Mainstream sociology views homosexuality as the property
of an individual explained either as being natural (‘essence’) or social (‘con-
structed’), thereby favouring a view of homosexuality as the condition of a
social minority. Queer theory criticizes this minority view by challenging the


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Travis S.K. Kong

hetero/homosexual binary as a master framework for constructing the self,

sexual knowledge and social institutions and thus opens up the idea of ho-
mosexual theory as a general social theory and critique. In a similar vein,
Chinese sociology of homosexuality, as part of queer Asian studies, could view
itself not as a minority study. By exposing the unstable and arbitrary binaries
(eg West/East, global/local, heterosexuality/homosexuality) that form a master
framework to understand non-Western non-normative identities, Chinese so-
ciology of homosexuality could force Western theories of sexuality to rethink
its own ethnocentric bias and thus open up a general social theory of sexuality,
identity, intimacy and desire.
Given that the global structure of knowledge production is uneven with the
Western theory and framework as the most dominant and richest in resources,
it is difficult to challenge this institutionalized knowledge-power regime, yet
various attempts have been made to de-centre, ‘provincialize’ or ‘queer’ the
West as well as to urge for inter-Asia as well as West-Asia comparison (Chen,
2010). By tracing the changing contours of Chinese sociology of homosexu-
ality through a meta-literature review of both Chinese and English writings,
this paper highlights the dominance of Western knowledge and the impor-
tance of the state in shaping the understanding of homosexuality – its termi-
nology, knowledge and practices – in contemporary China. By doing this, it
hopes to open up discussions of how to find a more nuanced understanding of
Chinese homosexual identities, desires and practices that is sensitive to local
experiences and global parameters under the geopolitics of the world system
of knowledge.

The University of Hong Kong Received 24 July 2015

Finally accepted 26 February 2016

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my colleague Prof. Karen Joe Laidler, Editor Prof. Beverley Skeggs and
two anonymous reviewers of Sociological Review for providing valuable comments on the earlier
drafts of this article.

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