Forbidden Love, Forgetting Gender

Abstract

Since their inception, Tat Ming Pair has been famous, or in some circles, notorious, for their gender and sexuality politics. It is of an advantage that when spoken, the Chinese language makes no distinction between “he” or “she,” thus allowing for more gender ambivalence. This ambivalence extents to sexuality; in their campy, extravagant performances, the duo exudes a queer aesthetics, without ever coming out as such—what Helen Leung calls Hong Kong’s “queer undercurrent” (2008). But then, as an unexpected blast that cracks open the undercurrents of queer invisibility and unrepresentability, reality overtook theory, and surprised and challenged it, in the year 2012. The coming out of Anthony Wong during a Tat Ming Pair live performance marked the turning point. This act was soon followed by similar acts of coming out of other pop stars. Chapter 4 investigates the articulation between sexuality and popular music, in particular Tat Ming, in the context of Hong Kong and mainland China. In doing so, we will trace the emergence of a Chinese movement to find indigenous ways of understanding sexual diversity. Interwoven with such resistance against dominant Western theories and practices, particularly the politics of visibility, is a local cultivation of ambivalence and invisibility, itself a complex manifestation of the ongoing interaction between queer identity and Hong Kong identity. Reflecting upon the events in 2012, we will come back to—and try to make sense of—the disruptive surprise of public figures coming out, apparently in accordance with Western models and in contrast to earlier local sexual politics of ambivalence and invisibility. However, as we will finally show, in the years following 2012, the potentiality of this disruptive surprise has shifted and has been, sadly, pushed back. First, by national policies against effeminate masculinities and sexuality- and gender-related activism at large. Second, by increasingly strict policies towards NGOs and social movements. Paradoxically, and again sadly, the political activities of Anthony Wong in and after the Umbrella Movement may have further jeopardised the potentialities of queer politics. Ironically, these political developments may well inspire a strategic move back towards a politics of invisibility and ambivalence.