Coming out to parents : homosexuals' identity management, family lives and social lives in Shanghai

Graduate School of Social Sciences

Sociology: Gender, Sexuality and Society

Coming out to Parents

Homosexuals’ Identity Management,

Family Lives and Social Lives in Shanghai

Master’s Thesis Sociology (73340018AY)

Supervisor: Paul Mepschen

Second Reader: Jan Willem Duyvendak

Hailin Zhang (12105716)

August 2019

Summary

This thesis looks at the homosexuals’ processes of coming out to parents, negotiated

consequences on family lives after coming out, and influence towards their social lives in

Shanghai, in order to not only present Chinese homosexuals’ living experiences of coming out,

but also provide a unique perspective to understand sexuality under Chinese familial and social

context, and further reflect contemporary Chinese societal transformations and problems. After

analyzing data collected via 17 interviews, it argues that homosexual children come out to their

parents under various circumstances, but the most significance is that it challenges the

presumed heterosexist life. Under the context of transformed family structures and new life

styles replacing the functions of marriage caused by economic development in Shanghai,

self-independence provides the possibilities and space for homosexual children to negotiate, and

eventually to reach compromises on family lives with their parents. Their further choices on

coming out or not in social lives have secured the stability of their current privileging life, and

thus produce a form of homonormative citizenship.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ... 1

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ... 4

2.1 COMING OUT AS IDENTITY MANAGEMENT ... 4

2.2 COMING OUT AND FAMILY LIVES ... 5

2.3 COMING OUT AND SOCIAL LIVES ... 7

2.4 A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK ... 8

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY ... 9

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS ... 11

4.1 PROCESSES OF COMING OUT TO PARENTS ... 11

4.1.1 Reasons to Come Out to Parents ... 11

4.1.2 Self-independence in Coming Out to Parents ... 12

4.2 CONSEQUENCES IN FAMILY LIFE AFTER COMING OUT TO PARENTS ... 13

4.2.1 Reactions from Parents and Current Situation after Coming Out ... 13

4.2.2 Consent on Not Coming Out to Others ... 14

4.2.3 Compromises in Family Lives ... 15

4.3 INFLUENCES ON SOCIAL LIVES AND COMING OUT IN PUBLIC ... 19

4.3.1 Coming Out in Social Lives ... 19

4.3.2 Homosexual Marriage and Coming out in Public ... 20

CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUSION ... 22

REFERENCES ... 25

Chapter 1: Introduction

This thesis is inspired by my own experience of coming out to my parents. Having been aware

of me being gay for more than 16 years, I had almost no trouble with embracing it in my life,

except coming out to my parents. Three years ago, I experienced the most dramatic moment of

my life when I eventually told them that I like boys. After several emotional days, my parents

told me that they need time to proceed it as no matter what I am still their son; but they had

two requirements: one is that I cannot tell anyone about my sexuality anymore, and another is

that I cannot get married, not even abroad, since “it is not allowed in China”; afterwards, they

did not speak to me for almost six months. Nowadays, my parents have gradually accepted my

sexuality in a way that we are now getting along as close as we were before my coming out,

except that we almost never talk about my love life. I would not say this is a successful ‘coming

out’; however, I am actually very satisfied, or even surprised, with the current closeness between

my parents and me and the fact that they do not nag me to get married with a woman or to have

a child, because I understand how difficult it is to come out to parents in China given the first

and foremost value of family in Chinese ideologies and the contradiction of being homosexual

in Chinese families.

Family is regarded as the most crucial element of Chinese society. “It is the center of most

social functions – political, financial, educational and recreational – and is the foundation of all

social relations” (Hsu, 1985, p. 96). However, the rapid development of economy, modernization

and urbanization of the society, as well as ‘one-child’ policy

1

and large-scaled migration from

the rural to the urban, have brought immense transformation on contemporary Chinese family.

To be more specifically, the structural revolution on family income, family members’ occupation

and social status have subverted gender roles and generational influence in a family, thus

reshaped different family member’s views on values of marriage, ways of social welfare and

meanings of child birth, and further influenced family’s function, relationship and structure. It

is manifested as: a) nuclearization of families, that the form of ‘big family’ and the dominance

of clan is replaced by the form of nuclear family and autonomy of couple life; b) diversification

of marriage and family values, that traditional values of hierarchy and patriarchy is replaced by

free will of marriage and egalitarian mind of family members; c) individualization of family life,

that emphasis on the collective interests is replaced by emphasis on the individual’s; and d)

functionalization of marriage, that the symbolized meaning of marriage is replaced by its social

function towards gaining social welfare (Li, 2002, pp. 94–103). However, this is not a one-step

conversion; scholars also pointed out that China is currently in a transitional period that ‘old’

ideas and ‘new’ ones entangle, restrict and influence each other, thus forming a dualistic cultural

structure. For example, a study on contemporary Chinese family’s cohesiveness has shown that

younger generation has started deviating from their original homes due to their gap on culture

and values between the older generation, but the ethics of responsibilities related to

family-based culture that are deep-rooted in, and continuously educated, promoted by the society still

pushes them back to the traditions, especially when they come to the age of marriage and child

birth (Yang, 2011).

Contradiction between coming out as homosexual and being the son or daughter of a family,

under this context, becomes prominent. On the one hand, homosexual people have the inner

urge to tell how they are, especially to the family, and live the life they desire; on the other hand,

as a family member, especially when being the only child of their generation in the family,

1

_{One-child Policy was legally enforced nationwide with a few exemptions at the end of 1970s. On 29}

_{October 2015, the}

statement of Fifth Plenary Session of the Communist Party of China 18th Central Committee has announced that it will be

changed to a Two-child Policy. Source from: http://news.xinhuanet.com/banyt/2005-03/07/content_2661731.htm and

http://news.xinhuanet.com/finance/2015-10/30/c_128374476.htm.

Chinese homosexuals have to give a deep consideration on the possible outcome that their

coming out would cause on parents-child and family as they destroy family reputation, and fail

parents’ and family’s expectation on their marriage and birth of next generation to extend family

blood line. This contradiction, as I have experienced, inspired me to look at the processes,

consequences and influences of coming out for those homosexuals who have done that to their

parents. The significance of this topic lies at the gap between real life coming out experiences

of Chinese homosexuals and current unsatisfying sociological studies on ‘coming out’.

Most studies on Chinese homosexuals’ coming out are still based on Chou’s (2001) opinion

published almost two decades ago that Chinese homosexuals have to either risk breaking up

the relationship with their parents and come out, or keep their sexuality as a secret and maintain

family harmony. Things have definitely changed after so many years. The focus of current

Chinese homosexual community has transcended self-recognition and moved to the

embracement of their sexual identity and desires into everyday life (Rofel, 2007). According to

a UNDP (2016) report on sexual minor group in China, around 15% of participants in their survey

have come out to their family members. Coming out to their parents and remaining a stable

relationship with them, and even involving their partners into their homosexual family life, has

become a planned action or already a reality for more and more Chinese homosexuals. This

difference between current situation and previous point of view on ‘coming out’ to Chinese

families raises the first research question of this thesis: why do Chinese homosexuals come out

to their parents? The answer to this question will indicate what are Chinese homosexuals’

motivations, strategies and narratives to come out. Knowing Chinese homosexuals’ process of

coming out is not only a testification to existing literatures on ‘coming out’, but more

importantly, also the first step to understand their ways of dealing with sexuality versus social

acknowledgement on homosexuality, and internal self versus external social relationships.

Previous Western literatures on family-related ‘coming out’ topics mostly focused on its

influence towards individual mental development and elements affecting interpersonal

relationships between various family members

2

, but rarely on living experiences and family life

shared together by all members. However, in China, sex-related issues, especially such as

marriage and child birth, is not only about an individual but more about the family. For example,

there is recently a trend in China that parents have gradually accepted their children’s

homosexual identity, and started to stand out and speak for their children, thanks to the work

done by PFLAG China (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays of China). It is now

one of the largest non-governmental and non-profitable LGBT organizations in China with

branches or groups in 60 cities, more than 3,000 volunteers, among which hundreds are parents,

and in total 50,000 participants for its activities

3

. Its achievement is rather an alert for us that

the aspect of interaction between ‘coming out’ and family lives has been overlooked in

sociological studies of sexuality, especially under the complicated Chinese context of family

relationships. Thus, this thesis will take a dare to ask, as the second research question, how

Chinese homosexuals negotiate family lives with their parents after coming out. The answer to

this question will present how parents react to their children’s coming out, and how coming out

to parents and retaining family relationship in China is becoming a ‘mission possible’. It will

also reveal the strategies families take to cope with other relatives in the family and acquainted

people outside the family, and the compromises reached by parents and children for family lives,

especially on issues such as marriage, social welfare and child birth behind the seeming

accepting attitude of parents towards children’s sexuality. Reactions from parents regarding

children’s sexuality not only demonstrate the complexity of sexuality in Chinese families, but

also lead the way to explore the negotiation of sexuality in family lives. The contradiction of

ideas between homosexual individuals and their parents on family lives are demonstrations of

how sex and sexuality is understood differently intergenerationally in Chinese context; and their

2

_{For a summary of family focused research on this aspect, see Savin-Williams (2009).}

_{Source from PFLAG China website: http://www.pflag.org.cn. Retrieved on 10-02-2019.}

further narratives of negotiations, compromises and strategies are reflections of how sex and

sexuality is valued within Chinese family. Moreover, it also provides an unusual lens to check

how concepts of family are transforming in contemporary China.

Besides its effect on self-identity and interpersonal relationship, the third aspect that

Western literatures on ‘coming out’ cover is its symbolic meaning on mobilization towards

social movement, namely ‘coming out’ as a claim for visibility and equal rights (Weeks, 2014).

Visibility refers to being able to disclose one’s sexual identity and talk about one’s feeling

without any obstacles. This symbolizes freedom for individuals, as the core value of Western

cultural system, and thus, have been widely encouraged (Rasmussen, 2004). A claim for equal

rights always follows being visible as it is the way homosexual people politicizing their identity

and promoting their civil rights and citizenship. It would be of significance then to see how it

is like within Chinese context, as Chinese society is still seen as an environment that is not open

to sexual minorities, regardless the civil or authoritative level. It leads to the third research

question of this thesis: what are Chinese homosexuals’ opinions on coming out in social lives

after they come out to parents. Coming out in social lives here, paralleling with two symbolic

meanings of ‘coming out’, visibility and claim for equal rights, refers to coming out to people

other than parents, namely mainly friends or colleague, and coming out to claim homosexual

equal rights in public. The answer to this question will focus on the situation that entangles

with the influence from family to see if coming out to parents would affect their decision on

coming out in social lives; therefore, it would further reflect Chinese homosexuals’

understanding on their sexuality, their strategies to cope with current Chinese society’s attitude

towards homosexuality, and dilemmas to come out to promote homosexual equal rights in

public. Together, this will give a complete picture of understanding sexuality in contemporary

Chinese culture and society.

Having introduced the significance of this thesis, two fundamental elements in the research

need to be clarified here. The first is that this thesis only looks at people who identify themselves

as homosexual, which means it does not include bisexual, transgendered, intersexual, sexual

fluid, or other sexual minor groups of people as their situations are different and more

complicated in many ways from the homosexual, especially when it comes to the term ‘coming

out’ (Eliason & Schope, 2007), and thus beyond the scope of this master thesis. The second is

that this thesis only reflects the situation in certain areas of China where its economic and social

development has reached to a level that family formations start to hugely challenge traditional

family structures. To be more specific, the chosen place for this research is the city of Shanghai.

This is not only because it is the largest city in China but also because its position as economic

center has built the city’s character as international and open. Its economic development has

drastically changed local family structures and its connection with the globe has introduced

many new ideas regarding sexuality and family, both of which cultivate the controversy that this

thesis is going to look at. Further explanations on how these relate to sexuality issues can be

found in following chapters.

To sum up, this thesis tries to explore situations of homosexuals’ coming out to their parents

in Shanghai, and their family and social lives after their coming out. It will not only examine the

term of ‘coming out’ under contemporary Chinese context, but also provide a novel perspective

to understand sexuality through homosexuals’ interaction with family and society, and to reflect

on emerging transformations and challenges on sexuality and family in current rapidly

developing Chinese society.

In next chapters, I will give a literature review on sociological significance of ‘coming out’ in

order to establish a conceptual framework for the research, and then introduce the adopted

methods. Chapters of findings, discussion and conclusion on the issues will follow thereafter.

Chapter 2: Literature Review

This chapter gives a review of literatures that focus on sociological significance of ‘coming out’,

as the processes, consequences and influences of this term would provide a unique perspective

to understand sexuality, besides its psychological significance in improving individual mental

health and interpersonal relationship.

2.1 Coming Out as Identity Management

As sexuality is a social construction, ‘coming out’, or disclosing one’s sexual identity, is not only

a psychological confrontation for one to accept his/her difference from major population, but

also a social process in which one’s sexual identity and expressions entangle with constructed

heteronormative mechanisms and governmentality (Foucault, 1978).

As early as 1970s, Altman (2012) has already discussed ‘coming out’ from sociological

perspective. He suggests that coming out is a long process in which people deal with their

socially accumulated internalized oppression, and a decision that weighs between their

emotional needs and resulting stigmatization. Given the still hostile environment towards

homosexual people back then, his writing puts more discussion on the oppression from the

heterosexual. Nevertheless, he still encourages homosexuals to come out for individual

liberation and to resist social oppression. Except this work, most other early literatures on

‘coming out’ tend to discuss it as one stage of sexuality development or a model of development

with several stages

4

. Eliason & Schope (2007) summarize the common themes of these models

as: a linear identity development that begins with feeling different from the others or social

norms, and progresses with several stages to a solid and self-accepted sexual identity; and a

plain coming out process that starts with disclosure, then pride, and ends with identity

integration. These types of models are increasingly challenged not only by growing developed

individual and social knowledge on homosexuality, bisexuality, transgender and gender fluidity,

but also the social constructionist perspectives of sexual identity (Eliason, 1996; Eliason &

Schope, 2007). Scholars have pointed out that these types of models overlook that sexual

identity is a social construction and their essentializing sexual identity to a certain self-adjusting

stage dismisses the political nature of it in response to heterosexual hegemony, and social

oppression and stigma (Fassinger & Miller, 1997; McCarn & Fassinger, 1996).

Yet still, academia sees many other fields of work, predominantly psychological focused

researches, using the term ‘coming out’ based on these earlier literatures with extended

meaning and disparate definitions; therefore, Orne (2011) argues that the term has become a

conceptual inflation that overwhelms scientific considerations, and urges scholars to

"reconsider the concept from sociological standpoint” (p. 682). He defines contemporary

coming out as “strategic outness”: “a continual, contextual, social identity management” (Ibid,

p. 685). He opposes to the idea that coming out is unremarkable as we are in a ‘post-gay’ society,

and asserts that queer people still apply various strategies under different social contexts for

multiple motivations to decide who knows and what should be known. With all the factors that

need to be considered and the content of discourse, strategic outness is a process of identity

development; and “‘coming out’ is not a static action, but a range of various motivations, goals,

and strategies that people wrap up in a single term, a catch-all for this complex identity

management system” (p. 699).

Klein et al. (2015) also criticize the rigidity of linear process of coming out as the only way

to be considered as healthy, well-adjusted and ‘good out’ queer. After researching 15 youths’

coming out experiences, they claim that individual, contextual and social factors play an

important role in coming out, and it is an ongoing, dynamic social process rather than an

internal process. Rosenberg (2018, pp. 1806–1807) also argues that in this process “the most they

can do is (to) accept the way in which their sexuality is influenced by the world, and the way in

which they can influence the world reflexively with their own understanding”; therefore, she

proposes a concept of ‘coming in’ that acknowledges that “queer people’s experiences of sexual

expression and self-discovery are irreducibly complex, ever-evolving, and intrinsically tied in

with social, relations, and internal factors and cognitions, both stigmatizing/assimilative and

radical/resistant” to challenge the concept of ‘coming out’ as the “terminal stage of queer

self-acceptance and self-realization”.

Based on the acknowledgement that coming out is a dynamic process of sexual identity

management, there are two aspects closely interacting with coming out that would shed light

on this process and further our understanding on sexuality, namely family lives and social lives.

2.2 Coming Out and Family Lives

Family is fundamental to coming out not only for its psychological prominence for homosexual

people to live a mental healthy life but also for its sociological significance in building

homosexual identity and conducting a homosexual life. Altman (1979) points out that it was not

until when the institution of marriage and family started to lose its absolute dominance and

imperative function to maintain social production that homosexuality achieved respectability

and social approval. The tension between the freedom given away by the downfall of

heterosexual family to homosexuals and homosexual people’s innate desire to return to family

provides a unique lens to understand sexuality as homosexuals’ not fitting into heterosexual

matrix remains a social process of stigma, shame and resistance (Butler, 1999).

Valentine et al. (2003) specifically criticize that in the society of individualization, in which

lesbians and gay men have given more opportunities to come out, the term is often discussed

as an individual decision, but “little attention has been paid to the actual processes through

which sexual dissidents negotiate their identities with others, and to the consequences of such

disclosures for those who are close to them or share their lives in various ways” (p. 480). They

argue that family is about responsibilities between members, which is a complicated web and

active process of relationships; and only by looking into the interaction of these

interrelationships can we understand the family operations. In this sense, “decision about

whether or not to come out are not therefore necessarily made on the basis of an individual’s

desires and chosen life path alone, but rather are often embedded in an understanding of, and

responsibility towards, wider family relationships and reputations” (p. 484); and the

microprocesses to the following consequences in the family of coming out allow us to

“understand the emotional functioning of the space of the family home” (p. 495). As social

geographers, Valentine and her colleagues put their final stance at the metaphor of family as a

home space, and emphasize the emotional functioning of this space. But if we follow their

argument, as family and sexuality are both social constructions, we will be able to see what

insight the processes and consequences of negotiating sexual identity with family members also

provide to understand how these two concepts are constructed and constructing the society.

Moreover, it is crucial to integrate racial cultural factor into the interaction between family

relationships and homosexual identity. This not only provides a nuanced approach to identity

formation study, but also helps to reject the assumption of coming out as a static and coherent

final subject. One outstanding work in this aspect is Decena’s (2008) research on Dominican

immigrant men in New York. He applies ‘tacit subject’, which in Spanish grammar is to omit

the subject in the sentence but the subject “can be ascertained through the conjugation of the

verb” (p. 340), to describe how Dominican immigrant men disclose their same-sex desire and

reach a consent within the family. Tacit subject demonstrates that under some cultural context,

sexual identity does not need to be public or spoken, nor secret or silent, but can be understood

or assumed. This process of understanding or assumption reflects how others interpret and

interact with the homosexuals, and deal with homosexuality in the family network based on the

same racial cultural ideology of family and sexuality. It helps us to reveal the intersectional

nature of social constructed concept of family and sexuality, “instead of focusing on an explicit

definition or categorization of individuals” (p. 340). His research brings the question of how the

situation is in other racial cultural forms, and especially for this thesis, in Chinese context.

To be able to understand coming out in China, and specially to Chinese parents, the concept

of filial piety has to be introduced first. Filial piety is the most valued responsibility for Chinese.

One of its responsibilities is the deep-rooted tradition of kinship that requires the child of family

to get married, especially for the son in the family to have a next generation that carries the

surname of the family thus to extend the family line. Given the major population who face this

task now in China are the only child of the family, the situation is more crucial and pressured,

especially for homosexual people. This makes ‘coming out to parents’ the heaviest burden and

the most difficult choice for Chinese homosexuals. Chou (2001), one of the experts on Chinese

homosexual culture, had an incisive summary of this situation: a person in Chinese cultural

background is first a member of the family instead of an individual; thus, the understanding of

a person’s sexual identity should be located in the context of his/her social relations, especially

the family. The main problem for Chinese homosexuals is the family, “the ones they love most

– their parents”, instead of “state oppression, religious fundamentalism, or job discrimination”

(p. 34). “In a society where filial piety is given the utmost importance in defining a person,

hurting one’s parents can be the most terrible thing”; and the problem for homosexual parents

is not only the acceptance of the child but also “the shame of losing face for having a deviant

child who does not get married” to their ancestors, relatives, and even neighbors (p. 34); thus,

the family becomes the major source of oppression on homosexuality in China. Based on this,

he argues that, while coming out in Western ideology is very individual and independent,

family-kinship system is at the basis of homosexual identification and related politics in

contemporary Chinese culture and society. Given the difficulty of accepting homosexual

children in Chinese family, he concludes that, for Chinese homosexuals, it is either ‘coming out’

to family with the most likely risk of breaking up family relationships, or ‘coming home’ without

revealing own sexuality and thus keeping a good relationship with parents. Tan (2011) follows

the idea, and borrows the term ‘tacit subjectivity’ also to refer to the living condition of Chinese

Singaporean homosexual men who ‘come home’ with implicit ‘coming out’ encounters with

parents. With this example, he aims to present a different performance of sexuality that is

in-between ‘coming home’ and ‘coming out’. Scholars in mainland China, however, mainly express

more pessimistic ideas. Wang (2011) claims that homosexuals in China nowadays are

“well-identified but not coming out”. Scholars argue that due to immoral standpoint on

homosexuality from traditional Chinese ideology, social stigmatization on homosexuality,

ungranted equal rights and individual prejudice, coming out usually results the breakup of a

family (Jing, Wang, & Zhang, 2014; Wang, 2014).

However, as we see more and more ‘successful’ examples from organizations like PFLAG

China that prove the opposite to earlier literatures regarding coming out to parents in China,

what we still lack is the study on sociological processes, consequences and influences of coming

out on family lives and relationships with these cases under Chinese context. A breakthrough

work, though, on this topic is Brainer’s (2019) newly published book Queer Kinship and Family

Change in Taiwan. She has done exceptional work on studying how coming out to parents and

family members has reconstructed family relationships in Taiwan. She explores the structural

and historical forces, and social, economic, political changes that make maintaining family

relationships possible for queer people after they come out by examining aspects such as their

coming out discourse, intergenerational and sibling relationships in the family, gender relations

and generational responsibilities, and economic concerns for queer families. Though the main

objection to homosexuality in Taiwan is from the pressure to maintain and reproduce the

patrilineal family and hierarchical gender relations, her research still manages to present us a

living panorama of how these families “do not merely react but also resist, rework and reimagine

kinship and family structures and norms” (p. 4) under such oppressive background.

2.3 Coming Out and Social Lives

The above section has reviewed how coming out is interpreted within family lives. In this section,

it will focus on another aspect that also closely interacts with coming out, namely social lives,

and to see how this gives sociological meaning to understand sexuality. Two threads of

researches are included in this aspect. One is coming out to social individuals, such as friends

and colleagues; another is coming out in public for homosexual equal rights.

When it comes to coming out to the surroundings, Seidman et al. (1999) notice for a long

time that American homosexuals “have normalized (subjectively accepted) and routinised

(socially integrated) their homosexuality to a considerable extent” (p. 20). It means their

decision on ‘coming out’ is not based on the extent of self-acceptance, but more of a compromise

on disclosure to fit themselves into heteronormative society, where “the calculus of benefits and

costs vary considerably depending on how individuals are socially positioned” (p. 10). As the

metaphor of ‘closet’ regulates homosexuals to conceal their identity and subject themselves to

the heteronormative real (Sedgwick, 1990), Seidman et al. (1999) use the term “beyond the closet”

to describe “intensive and extensive strategies of sexual self-management that created a

protected space that allow individuals to fashion gay selves and to navigate between a straight

and gay world” (p. 12). People are neither in the closet, nor out of the closet; but the decision is

about “drawing boundaries between personal information that is private and public” (p. 20). In

this way, it blurs the stigmatized narrative of ‘closet’, and exceeds the hetero/homosexual binary.

It also weakens the term ‘coming out’ as a supreme political act and helps us to examine

heterosexism as an institutional and cultural construction instead of simply a matter of

individual prejudice.

A major terrain where this can be more explicitly examined is professional occasions. Back

to 1986, Schneider (1986) has already checked variables at workplace that may affect lesbians’

decision on coming out, and thus argues that a person’s sexual identity and behavior is

connected to and affected by social structure. Furthermore, by studying coming out in

workplace, she challenges the private/public boundary of coming out. Scholars also criticize the

generalization on a constant status of being out as morally superior and the ignorance of

situational variables (most related with social power) that facilitate the negotiation of sexual

identity. For example, Rasmussen (2004) argues from her professional perspective as a teacher

that the problem of coming out is its in/out binary sets up a problematic moral imperative as

‘out’ being moral, tolerant and empowering while ‘in’ being the opposite. She concludes that

“people’s ability to continuously negotiate their identity is necessarily mediated by varying

circulations of power relating to age, family background, economic position, and race. The

dominance of coming out discourses in lesbian and gay politics […] belies the idea that coming

out is not necessarily an option, or a desired objective, of all people who are non-heterosexual

identified” (p. 147).

The focus of another thread of ‘coming out’ researches interacting with social relationships

is on its political implication. Coming out has been long time regarded as the central strategy

for queer consciousness: to increase the visibility and to raise public awareness of queer people

(Armstrong, 2002). But the critique is that most literatures applying this idea lean to its political

implication as a strategy rather than an sociological concept (Orne, 2011). The dominant usage

of the coming out narrative in social movements should be questioned when complete

disclosure is unrealistic or unwilling for some individuals; therefore, we should again not fall

into the dichotomy of ‘good liberating’ and ‘bad closeted’ gays. Rather, it is an indication for us

to investigate situations in which people consider their sexual identity as not essential, not

necessary, or not willingly to disclose, and thus to better understand sexuality under different

social and cultural context. Unfortunately, few literatures or empirical researches has done such

a job.

2.4 A Conceptual Framework

It is clear now from the above experience and knowledge, ‘coming out’ should be analyzed as a

social constructionist concept in order to learn its sociological significance. Social

constructionist perspective argues that sexual identity is contingent on social circumstances at

certain historical period, and queer theorists further suggest it as performative and fluid.

Therefore, sexual identity development is not with linear or plain stages, but influenced by

social surroundings and interactions over time and experience throughout one’s life (Mosher,

2001). A framework based on this acknowledgement allows researchers to discover diverse facets

of human sexuality in a society (Horowitz & Newcomb, 2002). In this way, “coming out is the

process of describing oneself in terms of social constructs rather than a process of discovering

one's essence, […] and defines one's relations to other individuals, groups, and sociopolitical

institutions in this context” (Rust, 1993, p. 68).

This thesis put Chinese family ideology and social environment as the context into Chinese

homosexuals’ coming out study. Using data from their processes of coming out to parents,

negotiated consequences on family lives after coming out, and influence towards their social

lives from this, the results of this research will be able to not only present Chinese homosexuals’

living experiences of coming out, but also provide a unique perspective to understand sexuality

under Chinese familial and social context, and further reflect contemporary Chinese societal

transformations and problems. The next chapter will explain how the research was conducted.

Chapter 3: Methodology

Social constructionist stance agrees on a society with multiple subjective interpretations of

socially constructed reality, and perceive identity as a complex reality constructed out of overt

and covert power relations (Jennings, 2001). By defining ‘coming out’ as a social constructionist

process, the approach enables me to see the interaction of subjects in their social relationships,

and reflect on the process with sociological significance.

The field work was carried out in April 2019 in Shanghai with the form of semi-structured

in-depth interview. Beforehand, there were two pilot interviews in February in order to set up a

preliminary framework for the research. These two informants were recruited via personal

network. Given the limitation of personal network and the consideration of the convenience of

interview, these two were gay male Chinese in the Netherlands. Fifteen informants were

eventually recruited via personal network and snowball sampling for field work. The criteria for

participation are: self-identified as homosexual, having come out to at least one of the parents,

and living in Shanghai for at least 3 years. The purpose of this is to ensure the data are consistent

and representative. Below is a table with details of all informants:

Code Name

Gender

Age

Occupation

Remark

AG

Male

43

Manager

AK

Male

21

Student

AR

Male

36

Manager

DT

Male

32

Manager

EN

Male

33

Freelancer

HS

Male

33

Manager

LB

Male

33

Manager

LX

Female

24

Intern

LZ

Female

26

Staff

MW

Male

31

Freelancer

QY

Male

34

Staff

SL

Female

32

Freelancer

TZ

Male

31

Staff

WB

Male

30

Researcher

Pilot Interview

XY

Male

33

Manager

XZ

Male

35

Staff

Pilot Interview

ZB

Male

37

Manager

For each interview, it was conducted either in a restaurant or a café with an easy meal or a drink

as the reward for the participation. This is actually more of help to conduct the interview with

an easy environment in which the informants would feel relaxed to talk. Before the interview,

each informant was guaranteed with the confidentiality of their personal information and the

content of interview. They were also aware that they have the freedom to withdraw the

interview or to refuse to answer any questions if anything would upset them. The interviews

started with their consent of recording, and mostly lasted 45-75 mins. However, an in-depth

interview is characterized not only by its length but also its depth. The structure of pilot

interview questions was based on the reflection of my own experience, covering their experience

of homosexual identity formation and coming out to parents, and the influence to their lives.

Two key aspects emerged from the pilot interviews, which are the influence of coming out to

their parents on their family and social lives. Therefore, experience of coming out to parents,

consequences in family lives and influence on social lives after coming out to parents composed

three main parts of the interview guideline for the field work in Shanghai. This guideline is,

however, “merely used as a guide. The ‘real’ guide to the issues or themes is vested in the

interviewees and they end up leading the interview by order of their thoughts and reflections

on the topic” (Ibid, p. 164). The informants were encouraged to speak freely, explain their own

experiences in details and do most of the talks during the interview. This enables opportunities

for more open and flexible conversations and unexpected topics for me to catch insights that I

have not anticipated, which gave more depth to the interviews (Veal, 1997).

All the recordings of interviews were transcribed in order for data analysis. The transcription

was firstly done via internet tools, then revised sentence by sentence manually by me. I analyzed

the transcriptions following the guidelines of abductive analysis (Timmermans & Tavory, 2012).

I started my analysis first with coding as it is the bridge from collected data to develop the theory

that will explain the data (Charmaz, 2014). I did initial coding for each transcription from the

interviews. In order to come up with research-worthy focused codes, I focused on relating codes

with my thesis topic, namely three main aspects for the interview as mentioned above. Some

interesting subtopics emerged from coding first several transcriptions, and were added into the

interview guideline for coming interviews in order to collect more specific data. This process of

coding and summarizing iteratively went through the whole fieldwork, and eventually all coded

data were categorized into 7 groups of focused codes, which are now used as subtitles for the

chapter of findings.

Regarding the limitations of this research, first is its assimilated characters of sample. The

topic of this thesis is relatively novel, and could be researched via diversified perspective. In

order to avoid the disperse of data, and to complete a focused research in limited amount of

time, several strict criteria of informants was set up. This serves to the purpose of the thesis as

to be able to provide a focused perspective on understanding the term ‘coming out’ in sexuality,

family and social lives. I hope the intersectional factors that were not included in this research

would inspire the directions of future researches, and to complete the understanding of the

issues. Another limitation is about the language. The transcriptions of interviews were written

in Chinese. It is the native language of informants, but has a huge difference in expression from

English. When a transcription is quoted, I translated them into English. While I have tried the

best to keep the original expressions from the informants, the translation would never deliver

the same tones as the native language, and thus there is an inevitable loss of information or

emphasis. The transcriptions have been provided as an appendix at the end of this thesis to cope

with this limitation.

Chapter 4: Findings

This chapter presents the data collected through the interviews with different focus on the

processes of coming out to parents, consequences in family lives after coming out to parents

and influences on social lives and coming out in public.

4.1 Processes of Coming out to Parents

The first part of findings focuses on two key aspect related to sexual identity emerged from my

informants’ motivations and situations during their processes of coming out to parents: one is

about coming out as an advocacy to challenge conventional heteronormativity of marriage and

family, and the other is coming out as a manifestation of self-independence.

4.1.1 Reasons to Come Out to Parents

I started each interview with the informants’ story of how they realized themselves being

homosexual and under what circumstance they came out to their parents. Except those who

were found out by their parents, for those who came out on their own, their stories did not

follow a step by step stage development. For example, QY came out when he was really confused

by his sexuality and was feeling depressed:

“So, until high school, I was still very depressed… That day I just stayed at home and felt really

unhappy… Then, they (parents) came to me and asked… Because I had a really good

relationship with my parents, and we talked about everything. It’s a habit from my childhood,

we talk about everything. So, I just burst into tears. You know once you start to cry, there must

be something wrong. Then, they just forced me, not forced, but asked what happened on earth.

That’s how I told them” (Interview with QY).

AR came out when he began to realize his sexuality, and needed support from his closest person:

“At that time, I was actually at a stage when I only had a vague judgement on my own identity.

Since I was not able to ask people around to give me some support, I hoped this support would

come from my family. So, I just told my mom very directly that I am different. It was a period

that I not only need to handle, or seek more stuff other than working, for example, the

transformation of my role in the society, but the more was that I need to take priority for the

change of my identity. I have a very clear recognition of myself, and I hope my family see me

as who I really am. Under this circumstance, I think it was a big stimulator why I came out to

my mom. So, after she asked me why I was different, my answer was I like boys” (Interview

with AR).

AK claims coming out to his mother, the closest person to him, is imperative for him to be

himself:

“I think this is a confession to myself. In my opinion, if I am not willing or dare to reveal my

identity to the closest person, I don’t think I am able to be myself authentically and completely”

(Interview with AK).

EN reflected on his own process to prepare for his coming out, and told me that coming out,

especially to parents, should be done when a person has fully accepted himself:

“It was actually a process of making myself strong and confident in order to be prepared for

the worst. It is a process where you slowly try to either build your personality or psychology,

or find the resource of your confidence in order to discover a complete self. So, this time I do

not need to affirm myself, but maybe more to accept myself in current state. You should

embrace yourself instead of seeing yourself from a critical or judgmental way and telling that

you are not doing well enough. This is a continuous process to accumulate strength, and then

you will have energy to be okay to accept the possibility of not being approved. So, I went

through this process of getting stronger. If you go back, say five years ago, I probably would

not have had the courage to do this, to face what would happen if I fail in coming out”

(Interview with EN).

The above three quotes exemplify that each individual has his/her own personal moment of

coming out rather than experiencing similar stages of sexual identity development and coming

out at the same stage. For them, coming out to parents is to fulfill a certain emotional need in

various phases of their identity development. However, coming out to parents for most of my

informants has nothing to do with identity development, but rather an advocacy of an identity

that challenges the orthodox life routine of getting married and having child, and the

heteronormative definition of ‘good person and family’ in Chinese ideology. For example, below

quotes show that my informants came out to their parent to break loose from the conventional

obligation of committing to a heterosexual marriage:

“Because it got to a stage that people should get married. My parents had been giving me quite

some pressures with regards to getting married for one or two years. They thought at my age

I should at least have (blind) dates, but I refused all their arrangements. My parents did not

understand why, and I was very pressured. Also, at that time, I was in a stable relationship

with my then boyfriend. So, two stimulators made me come out” (Interview with XY).

“The only trouble before my coming out was, which I think is a common problem for most

people, blind dates. I was always, always asked to have blind dates. At first, I could still handle

this, and later I became really annoyed. However, it didn’t matter too much when I was single,

except getting annoyed. After I met my (boy)friend it became even more annoying. He did not

stop me from having blind dates since we all know they were not for real, but you just felt really,

really annoyed. So, I thought it was more energy-saving to come out. I did not want to handle

that every day” (Interview with ZB).

Some informants interpret coming out to family as the endeavor to pursuit their same-sex

desires but still live a happy life.

“I think I have the responsibility to let at least my blood relatives know what kind of person I

am. I do not want them to have something in mind that, I mean when they pass away, I might

be at least sixty, and they still think that I am a lonely old lady or whatsoever. I think my

ultimate reason to come out is to assure them not to worry about me.” (Interview with LZ)

“I think, within a family, the point is not to lie to each other in the sake of seeming mutual

benefits. A family is not built on lies, but rather to reveal your true side, to understand and

support each other, to give you power. This kind of power given by your family, by your parents,

could never be replaced by others. So, deep in my heart, I had this wish that they would accept

me as who I am, and also my lover, my same-sex lover” (Interview with WB).

Coming out to parents is then, instead of functioning as a stage or a step to complete

self-acceptance, becoming a way for the person to demonstrate his/her own values on what a person

and family is, and to resist dominant ideas of presumed heterosexuality.

4.1.2 Self-independence in Coming Out to Parents

Though the situations and reasons for my informants to come out to their parents vary, when

they looked back to their experience or were asked to give suggestions, a key word emerged

from their talking about their sexuality and circumstance: independence. This type of

self-independence not only refers to a mature and healthy acknowledgement towards their own

sexuality as my informants did not have too much trouble for self-identification with

dissemination of positive knowledge on homosexuality they can get nowadays in China;

moreover, it refers to financial independence in a level that they are capable of coping with the

heckle after coming out to parents and living the life they desire:

“Financial capacity is the key. So, I did not rely on them all the way. I started to loan from the

university, and earned living allowance myself… At that time, I had the feeling that it is not

about if I can live by myself, but about if I have confidence in myself money-wise. When you

can support yourself, you can easier accept the result if you fail in coming out since other

aspects of your life are still stable” (Interview with EN).

“I think maybe because I had a job and was financially independent at a relatively young age,

I never relied on my parents. If I am a person who cannot even afford to rent a house for a

month, surely, they still want you to find a husband and to marry” (Interview with SL).

“If it is really going to make the relationship bad between you and your parents, or they just

cannot really accept it, and regard you as a pervert, I think it is better not to come out. You

should go to work and work hard, and wait until there is a better situation to come out. At the

very least you should be a little bit more financial independent” (Interview with LX).

It can be understood as that self-independence enables my informants to segregate their

sexuality from the web of family system in China. As we will see in following sections,

self-independence also plays a prominent role in negotiating family life with parents after coming

out. These exemplify how economy development has transformed family structure and allows

diversified individual desires in cities like Shanghai, which will be discussed further later.

4.2 Consequences in Family Life after Coming Out to Parents

Coming out to parents is not one time one person’s advocacy of his/her identity to the closest

relatives, but what follows is the family’s interactions, negotiations and compromises on

sexuality and sexual lives. Parents’ reaction on children being homosexual, their concerns on

children’s marriage, social security and welfare, and offspring, how they disguise it to others,

and all these interactions and compromises they develop with their children have composed a

living scene to understand (homo)sexuality and family life in Shanghai.

4.2.1 Reactions from Parents and Current Situation after Coming Out

The phases parents usually go through after their children’s coming out were also reflected in

my informants’ narratives. The most common first reaction from those parents is shock or

denial, which is evident due to that their impression on homosexuality is still stigmatized, thus

with shame. More than half of my participants mentioned that their parents at first thought

being homosexual is a mistake that can be corrected or a sickness that can be cured:

“After I told them (parents), they were very shocked. They thought at first this is a disease.

Because it is a disease, they thought it can be cured. And then I told them I wrote in my diary

regarding this aspect. I started to write diary since junior high school, and I always wrote

about this aspect. They said this should absolutely not be known by anyone. So, they first

burned the diary, and second, since no one should know, they asked me to act normal so that

no one will find out. The third is that they said ‘no worries, this is a disease, and we will take

you to see a doctor’” (Interview with QY).

“In her (mom) eyes, she still thought I should be restored to how a normal person lives. There

are just two ways. One is that I go to a psychologist and I become a girl psychologically.

Another way is to transform me physically to a girl. In this way, I can be together with a guy

as normal” (Interview with HS).

“At the first time, my mom said ‘it is okay, it is normal as long as you correct it’. She took it as

a mistake, and thought ‘for sure there will be no problem with my daughter, and we just need

to correct the mistake’” (Interview with SL).

“I said I like girls, then she (mom) directly cursed me as ‘pervert’, just like that. And then she

thought ‘if it was because I did not discipline you for these years that you are doing this kind

of stuff to destroy other people’s family’” (Interview with LX).

Among these reactions, a very interesting first reaction also appeared: that homosexuality is not

something belonging or existing in China:

“I said it is legal here (the Netherlands), people like this can get married and have social welfare,

etc. She (mom) said she does not care about how it is in other countries, as long as I am

Chinese, I should behave as how Chinese behave” (Interview with XZ).

“After I told her, she (mom) just could not believe it. I remember very clearly the response she

gave to me at the moment was isn’t this something only existing in other countries” (Interview

with AR).

The phase of guilty also appeared on my participants’ parents as they blame themselves for not

doing good enough in raising or educating their children that their children ‘learned’ this ‘bad

habit’. This phase can recur until the parents can cope better with the situation.

“My mom cried a lot that day. And recently she told me something like that she regrets that

she did not raise me well” (Interview with MW).

“They (parents) just thought I was sick, I needed to see a doctor. They even had a period in

which they questioned themselves if it was their fault that I became like this. They had it for a

while, because they were not clear about the cause of this and why on earth it would be like

this. Sometimes they would think that I suffered from a lack of love, or they did not care about

me enough, or if I was traumatized in a relationship, or if it was because of the arguments

between me and my parents in the past that led to the adverse reaction on me towards

heterosexuality and made me homosexual. They had an ambivalent and recurring process in

which they accused me then accused themselves” (Interview with XY).

Though for some parents it took more than 10 years and for others only 5 minutes, all my

informants’ parents eventually managed to get over the struggle concerning their children’s

sexuality. However, in my informants’ opinion, it is not acceptance, or being proud, as how we

would imagine about the result of coming out to parents in Western culture, but more of a

‘cannot help’ situation:

“Maybe because I was doing well. You know nowadays the society is like ‘people laugh at the

poor but not prostitutes’. So, they (parents) just thought ‘you are living well anyway, and we

have no right to judge’. They cannot control anything in my life, just like that” (Interview with

ZB).

“She (mom) actually knows she has no ways to help me with anything, so she just hopes I am

able to have a good life and live well. Just like that” (Interview with AK).

“I think now they (parents) accept my condition, but they actually still think it as a periodical

matter, a status. They still think this is not real… I mean they cannot fully acknowledge this;

they just accept it as how it is now” (Interview with XY).

“I think they are still disappointed. They just cannot accept it, but they have no way to change

it. After all, how everything is now is mainly because they have no alternatives. They said

‘because we love you as our child, live the way you want, as long as you are happy” (Interview

with QY)

Though Chinese parents may never become as proud of their children’s sexuality as Western

parents are, they barely break the tie with their children. However, as presented in previous

section, an important element during the process of my participants’ coming out is their

self-independence, parents do not have the control on their children’s life like how it was in the

old-time for Chinese families when the children were still dependent on them for almost everything.

Moreover, especially with children’s growing up and parents’ getting old, the role of who is

going to take care of whom has reversed, and parents’ emotional and financial dependence on

children will increase. Even when parents do not understand their children’s sexuality, they

have to find a way to cope with it and remain connected to their children. For Chinese children,

they also do not want to leave their parents no matter how much they are traumatized by their

parents’ misunderstanding; rather, they will find ways to reconcile with their family due to their

responsibility to take care of their parents. This is the consenting ground from where parents

and children start to negotiate about how to keep the family relationship healthy and make

compromises in family lives.

4.2.2 Consent on Not Coming Out to Others

The biggest pressure on parents is from the surroundings, such as relatives, friends, colleagues,

and even neighbors. Reputation is sometimes regarded as the most important component of a

family. A ‘good’ family in the traditional Chinese ideology is a family in which ‘parents are

happily married; and children are raised well’. However, for a family, having a homosexual child

not only means the disillusionment of the child getting married and having grandchildren (in a

heterosexual way), but also a huge shame when people outside the family know about this.

Therefore, most parents will keep their children’s sexuality a secret, and at the same time also

ask their children not to come out to other people. My informants specifically expressed their

understanding about the pressure parents are experiencing:

“So, I think she (mom) accepts me deep in her inner side. But she might be hindered by the

surrounding environment that she is suppressing herself on this issue. I know she hopes me to

be happy” (Interview with LZ).

“What I concern most is my parents. My coming out produces pressure on my parents. I would

try my best to reduce the pressure of my parents when they face relatives and friends’ questions.

I also hope that they are not that depressed. This is what I mainly care about. The challenge

now is how to relieve my parents” (Interview with XZ).

“I personally think that the fact I am not going to get married has put a lot of pressure on my

parents in the traditional sense. Before, they would ask if I want to have blind dates. But now,

as they know my situation, for this kind of things, they will refuse for me directly. I think they

have already taken more pressure than before” (Interview with XY).

“So, the biggest change after I came out is that I transferred the pressure I originally had to

my parents. Because after I said it, my parents will help me to push off those blind dates or

something. I actually have no pressure on myself, but in the early stages they must have been

quite stressed, right. Because others will definitely ask why your son is not married, or to

introduce someone for blind date. So, it is actually that I have transferred my earlier pressure

to them” (Interview with AG).

I specially asked all my informants if they have or are going to come out to other relatives.

Except two who came out to close cousins who “would understand what I am talking about”

(interview with LZ), most chose to respect their parents’ decision on not to disclose; and they

are fine with it:

“I think my parents are the persons I care most about. For relatives, I think they are persons

who I am related with but not close to. I know my parents would mind some of the problems,

and they are also worried about the negative effect it would have if others know about this

matter. I am not going to come out to my relatives” (Interview with XY).

“I have not told others yet. I think when looking at my responsibilities towards my total family,

my biggest responsibility is to my mom. Because she gave birth to me and raised me. For her

whole life, besides herself, the person she cares about most is me. I think my connection with

her is closer” (Interview with LZ).

“I do not think it is necessary to come out to other relatives. I do not know them very well”

(Interview with AK).

“I think it is like after my sister knew about this, I have made peace with myself on coming out

to my family. The job is done. If others know about it is not at all as important as she knows”

(Interview with DT).

It is evident from my interview, coming out for my informants is only essential towards parents,

or the person who raised and cared most about them as in some cases it is a single parent and/or

a brother/sister. This shows coming out is condensed to the scope of nuclear family, which has

implication when it comes to coming out in social life, and will be discussed further later.

4.2.3 Compromises in Family Lives

Though they have reached consent on how to deal with the sexuality outside the family, there

are many aspects in family lives that still cause concerns for parents, and their negotiation with