“I had to get married to protect myself”: Gay academics’ experiences of managing sexual identity in China

“Marriage fraud” or social constraint? Reasons for understanding tongzhi and tongqi in mixed‐orientation marriages in China

“…Contemporary China is highly heteronormative, and this finding is consistent with other researchers (Cui, 2022; Song et al., 2021, 2022). By avoiding heteronomative bias, this study unpacks various lived experiences of heteronormativity, in which we were able to reveal common and compelling explanations for entering MOMs from both tongzhi and tongzhi .…”

“…Compulsory (heterosexual) marriages are still prevailing in contemporary China (Cui, 2022; Kam, 2014; Wang, 2020; Yan, 2009), which push most respondents, regardless of their gender and sexual orientation, to conform to conventional marriage, and particularly to marry by a certain age even if the relationship might not be ideal. At the societal level, the family is the most basic cell of society, and a stable and harmonious family is the foundation of a harmonious society (Fincher, 2014; Wang, 2020).…”

“…This single‐axis thinking masks and undermines the complexity of MOMs; it hardly acknowledges or even reinforces the intersecting social power structures and oppression of this social issue in China (Liu, 2020a; Yang, 2015). Although tongzhi entered MOMs due to societal and family pressures (Cui, 2022; Li, 2009; Zheng, 2015), little is known about tongqi who unwittingly entered MOMs (Wang et al., 2020). Therefore, the voices from tongqi who unwittingly entered MOMs should be included.…”

Queer migration, heteronormativity and the ‘ethnic closet’: Chinese queer international students' intersectional experience in New Zealand

“…On university campuses in China, specifically, queer‐related issues have been repressed in classroom teaching (Cui, 2023b, 2023d) and academic research (Cui, 2022b, 2023a). Chinese queer students and academics must manage their stigmatized identities on campus (Cui, 2022a, 2023c, 2023e), and those who come out publicly are subject to harassment and punishment by authorities (Song, 2021; Zhang, 2020). Given the shrinking space for transgressive genders and sexualities, ‘development‐induced mobilities in pursuing educational, cultural, social and economic capital […] offer a slim hope through which a privatized, depoliticized queer future may be possible’ (Wei, 2020, p. 9).…”