'Queer Resistance: Contesting State, Family and Inequality in Post-Socialist China'

About this event

How do China’s LGBTQ+ people respond to intensified state repression? How do they construct community and identity amid persistent stigmatisation and pursue non-normative desires within strong yet changing family norms? Drawing on life-story interviews, archival research, and ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2015 and 2025, this talk discusses major findings of the titled book, which situates queer lives in post-socialist China within historical legacies, evolving state policies, and rapid socioeconomic transformations brought about by economic reform and global capitalism. Attending to global influences without assuming uniform change, it highlights local innovations such as cooperative marriage, non-disclosure as care, and contestations of Western discourses on coming out and same-sex marriage. It shows how differences in class, gender, cohort, rural or urban origin, and HIV status shape organized and everyday resistance. In doing so, it destabilises the 'progressive' West–'conservative' East divide by revealing internal diversity and uneven transformations within the Chinese queer community. It also challenges theories that reduce Chinese society to static culture, singular individualism, or authoritarian control. Registration This event is open to the public and free to attend; however, registration is required. This event is taking place on campus and will not be recorded or live-streamed. Organiser This event has been organised by the SOAS China Institute.