Queer Sinophone Malaysia: Language, Transnational Activism, and the Role of Taiwan

Queer processes of Hong Kong as a global formation post‐2019: LGBTIQ+ Hong Kong migrants and their experiences in Taiwan

“…To my interviewees, cultural familiarity weighted as much as, if not more than, institutionalized protection of LGBTIQ+ people common in many Western democracies. This echoes what has been pointed out in research on the migration of LGBTIQ+ Chinese Malaysians to Taiwan (Yu, 2021b, 2022), demonstrating how Taiwan provides a South–South mobility framework that challenges Western‐centric queer migration paradigms, which privilege the Western world as the only possible site for queers seeking freedom.…”

“…same-sex marriage) than in Taiwan, became more relaxed for Hongkongers following the 2019 social unrest. Echoing recent research on LGBTIQ+ Chinese Malaysians' migration to Taiwan (Yu, 2021b(Yu, , 2022, my findings demonstrate that cultural familiarity, configured as Sinophone affinity, has played a significant role in shaping ethnically Chinese queer people's mobility choices. This is where and why Taiwan can offer an opportunity to challenge Western centrism in queer transnationalism and migration studies paradigms.…”

“…It explores how queerness came to shape and politicize post‐2019 Hong Kong identity and why it is particularly pronounced in transnational settings. Second, it extends recent research on Taiwan's role in global queer migration by investigating how the island nation became a place of exception for LGBTIQ+ Hongkongers and, by extension, other ethnically Chinese queers (Yu, 2021b, 2022). Lastly, it concludes by highlighting how Hong Kong and Taiwan are linked by a structure of queer Sinophone consciousness and demonstrating how queerness and Chineseness are mutually productive and most amplified in transnational settings (Chiang, 2021; Chiang & Heinrich, 2014; Chiang & Wong, 2020).…”

“…Recent scholarship in queer studies, on the other hand, has critiqued the Western centrism in queer migration research (e.g. Kam, 2020;Lai, 2018Lai, , 2021Yu, 2021bYu, , 2022, which has focused mostly on mobility patterns from non-Western regions to countries in the Global North. This predominant focus is often informed by the assumption that North American and Western European countries are desirable destinations and the only liveable locations for LGBTIQ+ individuals from non-Western cultures (Mole, 2018).…”