Why Gay Men and Lesbian Women in China are Marrying Each Other
Photo courtesy of Chuang Chuang Lin Hui.
The popular sitcom “Friends” is available again in China on well-known streaming services – but it comes with censorship. Some discerning fans realized that a lesbian relationship involving main character Ross’s ex-wife, Carol, was cut from the resurrected show. So was her desire to co-parent their child alongside her female partner.
The Chinese government’s prohibition of gay relationships in “Friends” is emblematic of its intensified repression of the LGBTQ+ community and strong embrace of conservative gender roles. While the advent of the internet and increased access to social media, including online sites for queer people, had begun to destigmatize same-sex relationships in China, the country’s patriarchal, authoritarian government and traditional family structure are forcefully pushing back with social and economic pressure. This pressure from the government, driven by an impending demographic crisis, and Chinese society’s existing heteronormative marriage and kinship norms have triggered an increase in the popularity of xinghun.
Xinghun, literally translated as “pro-forma marriage” but often interpreted as “cooperative marriage” or “marriage of convenience,” is a marriage arrangement between a gay man and lesbian woman that often allows queer people within China more freedom to examine their sexuality and gender while ostensibly remaining within the traditional family structure. Within China’s LGBTQ+ community, engaging in xinghun is an increasingly popular way to ease family pressure and become a “filial subject” instead of a “filial victim” in a society that highly values filial piety. Xinghun also often allows queer people to utilize the freedom and privacy afforded to married couples to explore their sexual and gender identity.
Kinship and marriage are at the center of Chinese social, political, and economic life, and many queer Chinese cite pressure from parents and family as a primary reason behind seeking xinghun. Greatly influenced by the traditional Confucian notion of an “ideal” family and filial piety, progeny also are expected to provide material benefits to parents. The high value placed on heterosexual marriage and producing heirs forces LGBTQ+ identifying people to navigate the liminal space between exploring their gender and sexual identity and conforming to expectations. Many queer subjects interviewed in 2018 by Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania professor Shuzhen Huang and Arizona State University professor Daniel C. Brouwer seemed painfully aware of this expected duty and in seeking xinghun, referenced the Confucian saying, “There are three ways of being unfilial, and to not have an heir is the worst.” Yaqing, a queer woman, describes the stress associated with gendered expectations: “If you do not have kids, many people will think that you are weird. As a woman, sometimes I feel a bit [of] panic because everyone is telling you so.”
While every queer subject interviewed by Huang and Brouwer expressed the difficulties of “coming out” to family due to the force of family pressure, many have discovered that instead of having to choose between the rigid Chinese family system and the Western, identity-based norm of “coming out,” they can embrace the notion of “coming with” to engage queer attraction without having to exit the family system. In China, queer people are sheltering homosexual attraction under the guise of public heterosexual marriage. In Huang and Brouwer’s interviews, lesbian Dee’s xinghun included an agreement not to have children. Dee felt that her marriage increased her personal space and could facilitate her resistance to having a child. Xinghun for the sake of divorce is also an option for lesbian women who want to gain the economic and personal freedom granted from having once been married. Huang and Brouwer state that, “for Chinese lesbian women, being a divorced woman who is read as heterosexual is less stigmatizing than being never married.”
The government’s pressure on queer Chinese to conform to the demographic goal of increasing the population has also increased the popularity of xinghun. In 1997, the government took a step forward on LGBTQ+ issues by decriminalizing homosexuality, and in 2001, homosexuality was removed from the official list of mental disorders. However, President Xi Jinping has embraced traditional gender roles and cracked down on public displays of same-sex love and attraction since taking over as leader in 2012.
A driving force behind Xi’s tightening of policies is the government’s concern regarding the country’s aging population, significantly skewed male to female ratio, and declining birth rates despite the lifting of the restrictive one-child policy. The Party’s legitimacy is tied to continued domestic economic growth, which is sustained by a vital and plentiful workforce. However, downward demographic trends in China have led the government to openly promote marriage and increase pressure on women to marry, leaving few options besides xinghun for queer Chinese to pursue their same-sex desires and remain a part of the family unit. Ultimately, the authoritarian government views heterosexual marriage as a “pillar of social stability” necessary to prevent societal collapse and ensure China’s continued global rise.
In 1979, the year the one-child policy was instituted, the country’s fertility rate was 2.8 births per woman on average. By the time the government lifted the policy nearly four decades later in 2015, that number had fallen to only 1.6 births. Despite government expectations since 2015, there has been no baby boom. China’s average births per woman remain below the rate of 2.1 needed for population replacement, according to the World Bank. The effect of the downturn in birth rates is compounded by China’s aging population. By 2060, one-quarter of China’s population will be older than 60. The country’s dependency ratio, or the number of children (ages 0-14) and older people (65+) compared to the working-age population (15-64), is projected to rise from 36.6% in 2015 to 69.7% in 2050. And China also has one of the most skewed gender ratios in the world: as of 2015 there were roughly 113 men for every 100 women, or 34 million more men than women.
The government’s effort to regain control of population planning has resulted in the minimization of ways queer Chinese can freely navigate society and the silencing of the LGBTQ+ community in public spheres both on the internet and in person. Homosexual marriage remains illegal in mainland China, where the only recognized form of marriage is a heterosexual, monogamous union. The government has cracked down especially hard on online apps and forums where lesbian women can connect. In May 2017, the government abruptly shut down the leading lesbian dating app Rela, which had about 5 million registered users at the time. That same month, Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, deleted Rela’s social media account without explanation. While the world’s most popular gay dating app, Blued, remains online in China, it has done so by sanitizing its homosexual messaging to avoid censorship from a government that seems more tolerant of homosexual male relationships— as long as they do not interfere with state population goals. As scholar Leta Hong Fincher succinctly observed, “lesbians freely loving each other adds up to fewer women willing to enter heterosexual marriage, thus harming China’s population-planning goals.”
Under Xi, in recent years the government has clearly increased its censorship of public displays that defy the rigid heterosexual marriage institution. Gay scenes were cut out of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” a biopic about the famous rock band Queen, and the lesbian Chinese soccer star Li Ying’s emotional coming-out post was quickly censored from Weibo after an initial outpouring of support. And just this month, U.S. media conglomerate Warner Brothers complied with the Chinese government’s request to cut out six seconds of dialogue alluding to a gay relationship in its new Harry Potter-related film. Government repression in real life and the media, fueled by China’s demographic crisis and Xi’s patriarchal, authoritarian leadership, has influenced an increasing number of queer Chinese to opt for xinghun.
While the popularity of xinghun is rising, China’s modernization did bring about rapid social changes that increased the visibility of China’s LGBTQ+ community and have made it easier for queer Chinese to connect with each other in person and especially online. This has allowed for a more unified pushback against the government’s repressive policies. Social media has proved an especially effective way to counter LGBTQ+ censorship. When Weibo announced in 2018 that it would ban gay content, public outcry and online backlash caused Weibo to reverse its policy, which was likely in response to a government directive. The court system is also a daunting but possible route to fight discrimination. For example, former college student Ou Jiayong sued a publishing company that neglected to remove homosexuality from its psychology textbook’s outdated list of mental disorders. Despite losing the initial lawsuit, her case generated substantial media attention and galvanized the queer community. She has appealed the ruling.
Ultimately, the rising popularity of xinghun demonstrates the formidable governmental repression of same-sex expression and societal pressure to conform to traditional gender roles. While some popular representations of xinghun, such as Taiwanese director Ang Lee’s 1993 film “The Wedding Banquet,” portray the mutual benefits of “cooperative marriage,” the reality for many LGBTQ+ people in China is that negotiating xinghun is often painful, complicated, and requires compromise that limits the individual freedom of expression and ability to explore.
Kate Strong (Columbia College ‘24) is a staff writer at CPR with a focus on China’s foreign relations and U.S. constitutional law. She is a sophomore studying political science and East Asian languages and cultures and is on the pre-law track. Kate is also an editor at the Columbia Undergraduate Law Review and edits its semester print journal and articles for its current events division. You can find her playing intramural soccer with her friends, completing the daily New York Times crossword, or going on adventures to try new cuisines.