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Title:
Queer in China: challenges and transformations in a transnational context
Abstract:
The term queer has historically been stigmatized in the English-speaking world as an insult. However, following the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 1980s and 1990s, activists appropriated this insult to turn it into a critique of normativity. In this context, the queer movement not only includes gender and sexual dissidents who resist dominant heterosexual values and norms, but also critically examines identity politics and questions the binary between homosexuality and heterosexuality, as well as the exclusionary processes that arise both within and outside the gay and lesbian movement. It is important to note that queer theory is inseparable from its struggles, as it draws strength from the social movement and its political agenda. The term queer theory was first mentioned by Teresa de Lauretis in 1990, in her critique and resistance against the normative institutionalization of lesbian and gay studies. In this sense, Warner (1993) adds that queer refers to an anti-normative stance that questions the regimes of the normal that produce exclusion and inclusion, and therefore, it is both a theoretical stance and a political position that claims resistance to a broad and complex field of normativities, which manifest differently in each cultural and political context.
Starting from the genealogy of the term queer, this paper analyzes its transformation in the context of the People's Republic of China, as well as queer Chinese activism from a transnational perspective, to demonstrate that queer subjectivities and politics are a field of constant negotiation, treated in peculiar ways between institutions such as the state, activist and academic sectors and individuals, and shaped also by local and transnational conditions.
The methodology of this research is based on fieldwork conducted in Madrid and other European cities between 2022 and 2024, using participant observation with the Chinese diaspora collective and Chinese queer and feminist activists. Direct participation in their political activities is also incorporated into the analysis. In addition to ethnographic work, the analysis of primary and secondary sources in English, Spanish, and Chinese concerning queer and feminist movements in China is applied.
