Reemergence of Public Discussion on Homosexuality in 1980s and 1990s China

In the first half of the 20th century, Chinese intellectuals introduced the new Western concept of homosexuality to China and at the same time appropriated it with ago – old indigenous understandings of same-sex relations. In the historical context of Western and Japanese imperialist threat, the process produced a variety of new meanings of homosexuality in modern China. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, however, open discussion about same-sex relations became very rare and the term homosexuality disappeared from the public. But the reform era (from the late 1970s onward) saw a reemergence of media representation, medical discourse, sociological studies on the issue of homosexuality. This talk will discuss the content of those texts and provide a historical context of this phenomenon.  

Wenqing Kang is a historian of gender and sexuality in China who is visiting Trinity for the 2023/24 academic year from the History Department of Cleveland State University, USA. He earned his PhD from the University of California, Santa Cruz. His research focuses on male same-sex relations in modern China. His book Obsession: Male Same-Sex Relations in China, 1900-1950 (Hong Kong University Press) reveals how nationalism and colonial modernity reconfigured Chinese discourses on sex between men in the first half of the 20th century. He is now writing a book on male same-sex relations in the PRC from 1949 to the present, drawing on interviews and library and archival resources.