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In this article, the author analyzes the emergence of a 'coming out' discourse in Taiwan and the generational variation in its relevance for queer lives. Drawing from fieldwork with gender and sexually nonconforming people ranging in age from their 20s to their 70s, she argues that dominant identity-based frameworks are inadequate for understanding how and why this discourse has emerged in Taiwan at this historical moment. The findings point instead to generational shifts in familial interdependency and intimacy, which require new and hybridized strategies for managing gender and sexuality within families. This article highlights the importance of placing the small but growing body of work on LGBT family of origin relationships in conversation with theories of parenthood, kinship and family change.

How do emerging and enduring conditions of motherhood in Taiwan shape mothers' interactions with children who are gender or sexually nonconforming? Bridging research on the transformation of mothering discourses in Taiwan and globally with the small but growing body of work on LGBT family of origin relationships, this article argues that women's experiences of raising gender and sexually nonconforming children are integrally shaped by the conditions of gender and family inequality in their own lives. These inequalities are sometimes challenged but often reinscribed by new parenting discourses and resources that have proliferated in late 20th and early 21st century Taiwan, including new forms of parental labor, accountability for child outcomes, and emerging expert voices on sexuality and parenthood. This analysis is rooted in ethnographic fieldwork and family history interviews with gender and sexually nonconforming people and with their families of origin throughout Taiwan, with emphasis on heterosexual mothers' narratives.