Beyond Heteronormativity? Intimacy and Intersectionality of Lesbians and Gay Men in Post-Reform China
Hybrid event: In-person and online (via Zoom). Registration required to attend online.
Following the growing cultural visibility of sexual minorities, there has been a proliferation of research on LGBT lives, particularly those related to their identity, marriage, family and activism. However, limited research about their intimate/sexual lives beyond a public health perspective has been conducted. Based on the analysis of 127 life stories of LGBT people from elite, middle- and working-class backgrounds, this talk examines their expectations and practices of intimacy. By engaging in same sex relationships, sexual minorities could be considered as directly challenging a core pillar of heteronormativity – the assumption that heterosexuality is the only normal expression of sexuality. Yet gender expectations and practices in some LGBT intimate relationships may reproduce heteronormativity. At the same time, some intimate relationships have become a key site of reflexivity, providing spaces for decoupling the naturalized links between gender and sexuality. It is this internal diversity that calls upon an intersectional analysis that will help illustrate the factors and contexts that in some instances produce conformity while in others bring about changes in intimate lives in post-reform China.

Susanne Choi Yuk Ping is Professor at the Department of Sociology and the Co-Director of the Gender Research Centre at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Date: 6 June 2022, 13:00 (Monday, 7th week, Trinity 2022)
Venue: Dickson Poon Building, Canterbury Road OX2 6LU
Venue Details: Kin-ku Cheng Lecture Theatre (lower ground floor)
Speaker: Professor Susanne Choi (Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Organising department: Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
Organisers: Professor Denise van der Kamp (University of Oxford), Dr Yi Lu (University of Oxford), Dr Coraline Jortay (University of Oxford), Dr Chigusa Yamaura (University of Oxford), Dr Giulia Falato (University of Oxford)
Organiser contact email address: information@chinese.ox.ac.uk
Host: Dr Chigusa Yamaura (University of Oxford)
Part of: China Studies Seminar series
Booking required?: Required
Booking url: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_okEENtanQOiL7vhnhLzj9A
Cost: Free
Audience: Public
Editor: Clare Orchard