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The Negotiation Between Heteronormative Urban Public Space and the Homosexual Life of Chinese Post-90S Urban Gay Men

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The Negotiation Between Heteronormative Urban Public Space and the Homosexual Life of Chinese Post-90S Urban Gay Men The Negotiation between Heteronormative Urban Public Space and the Homosexual Life of Chinese Post-90s Urban Gay Men Author: Yanhao Ruan (6485898) Supervisor: Irina van Aalst Urban and Economic Geography, Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University, the Netherlands Summary This research thesis clarifies the negotiation process of Chinese young homosexual males between the heteronormative urban public space and their homosexual identity by focusing on their daily practice in space. Based on an empirical study in the city of Guangzhou, this research adopts methods of in-depth interview and photography. Post- 90s urban gay men have higher acceptance towards homosexual identity and lower acceptance towards conducting homosexual behaviour or visiting homosexual place in urban public space. They have different levels of awareness towards the heteronormativity of the urban public space. They also notice the suppression brought by such heteronormativity to their identity cognition pathway. As a compromise, they instead satisfy homosexual needs in an understated way to avoid identity exposure. Meanwhile, they transform part of homosexual social life to the relatively free and less heteronormative digital space that is more private and accessible for their group. Also, they value the geographical space such as restaurants, cafes, malls and squares, as it provides public places to develop online connections. Besides, concepts like “gay cruising” “gay neighbourhood” and “space for performance” in western research are discussed in the condition associated with the reality of China. Contents 1. Introduction ...................................................................................................... 1 2. Theoretical Framework ................................................................................... 6 2.1 The pathway of homosexual identity development ..................................... 6 2.2 Homosexual identity in China ...................................................................... 9 2.3 Urban public space ..................................................................................... 10 2.4 The heteronormativity of urban public space............................................. 13 2.5 Assumptions ............................................................................................... 18 3. Methodology ................................................................................................... 20 3.1 Study population and location .................................................................... 20 3.2 Research methods....................................................................................... 22 3.3 Data collection ........................................................................................... 24 3.4 Ethical issues .............................................................................................. 25 3.5 Data analysis .............................................................................................. 25 4. Result ............................................................................................................. 28 4.1 Homosexual identity .................................................................................. 28 4.2 Urban public space ..................................................................................... 34 4.3 Negotiation ................................................................................................. 41 4.4 Space utilisation ......................................................................................... 47 4.5 Consequences ............................................................................................. 52 5. Conclusion .................................................................................................... 57 6. References ....................................................................................................... 64 1. Introduction In China, topics related to the impact of rapid urbanisation have been under heated discussion in the field of urban and economic geography for decades. However, discussions mostly focus on either economic-related topics or mainstream social groups, such as infrastructure, housing, gentrification, urban village, government- leaded industrial structure upgrade, the contradiction between expanding urban space and shrinking agricultural land (Gao et al., 2011; He & Liu, 2010; He, Qian & Deng, 2011; Lan, 2005; Liu, Li & Xu, 2007; Peng & Zhao, 2010; Song, 2011; Wei & Yan, 2005; Yan, Zhou & Yan, 2011; Yu et al., 2017; Zhang et al., 2006; Zhou et al., 2016). There has been ignorance on marginal social groups, especially sexual minorities, including their utilisation of urban public space and the impact of unfriendly urban space on their cognition pathway. Actually, in China, the sexual minority is not only neglected in the field of urban geography but also discriminated in many other aspects. Take homosexual as an example, although homosexuality has been decriminalised since 1997 (The National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China [CPR], 1997) and has been declassified as a mental illness since 2001 (Chinese Society of Psychiatry [CSP], 2001), the Chinese government still holds an attitude of “no approval; no disapproval; no promotion” up to date. Homosexuality is legal in China, but that is all; there is no same-sex marriage, no adoption, no more legal protection. Due to the rapid legalisation of same-sex marriage in plenty of foreign countries, people, especially young people, are more tolerant of homosexuals in recent years. Moreover, homosexual topics are brought to the public via social media, but still, stay as “subculture” and “unofficial” (Yang, 2019). Therefore, most homosexual people stay as invisible in urban space, experience self-oppression to prevent identity exposure. LGBTQ events, sexual minority social movements and sex education are limited as well. Generally, this situation is understandable considering the economic and social achievement that China has gained during the past 40 years of Reform and Opening Era. On the one hand, from 1978 on, China has been exploring its way to reform the economic system, mainly by reducing governmental control on economic activities as well as attracting foreign investments from more developed countries and regions. These strategies created new industries, numerous factories and jobs, attracted a large population to settle in the city, expanded the urban area and increased the number of cities, which further resulted to quick urbanisation nationwide, especially the eastern part that is near the coastline and has better infrastructures. According to the census statistics, the population of city surpassed that of rural area in 2011 for the first time in the history of China, which is also the year that the urbanisation rate reached over 1 50% (National Bureau of Statistics [NBS], 2017). On the other hand, the societal aspect of urban space is less mentioned than the economic one. Topics like migration, ethnic and ethnicity, segregation, refugee and social minority are heated in the West but not very much in China. Political ideology is undoubtedly a critical reason since socialism in China regards all people as one and believes that demographic differences could not undermine their unity as proletariats. However, demographic characteristics and traditional culture do play some roles. For instance, among all 56 ethnics, Han Ethnic takes up 91% of China’s population, while the rest 55 share only 9% (NBS, 2010). Such a mismatch is more severe in eastern China. Ethnic minorities are clustered in provinces with inland border. They have fewer contacts with the eastern part, especially more prominent cities. Besides, Confucianism has been the dominated culture in China even before the foundation of the People’s Republic of China (1949). It has already become a fundamental component of Chinese traditional culture. As a way of life and a system of social and ethical philosophy, Confucianism emphasises filial piety and obedience (even royalty) and denies one’s value for being different from others in his collective (i.e. family, neighbourhood, company, classroom, school) (Ruan, 2019). It also regards homosexuality as a violation of conventional societal values (such as breaking the yin– yang harmony of the heterosexual relationship, cheating on family integrity, and disturbing social order) (Hsieh et al., 2011; Tang, Lai, & Chung, 1997). Such dogma of Confucianism is one of the reasons why homosexuality in China is typically perceived as taboo (Wong & Tang, 2004). These negative factors resulted in the incompleteness of self-cognition and personality at the micro-level, as well as the fear of expression and the ignorance of people’s social needs at the macro-level (Ruan, 2019). The inequality status of homosexuality has manifestations not only on gay people’s social status but also Chinese academia. According to the researcher’s search on the statistical data of China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), over 50% of homosexuality-related scientific literature is about HIV, AIDS and other biological or psychological topics such as contaminated blood and acquired immunodeficiency (Cai et al., 2005; Ding et al., 2010; Lu et al., 2003; Qu et al., 2002; She et al., 2012; Wang & Wen, 2002; Zhang et al., 2001; Zhang et al., 2013). Furthermore, only less than 10% of the literature is under the subject of humanities and sociology, not to mention that it is even less
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