Four years, two ntents: a gay Che uple's journey for a surrogate son | Parents and parentg | The Guardian

Contents:

• BEG GAY CHA HAS GOTTEN HARR UNR XI JPG
• A GAY MAN CHA
• FOR CHA’S GAY MEN, DONGDAN PARK BEIJG OFFERS HAVEN
• FOUR YEARS, TWO NTENTS: A GAY CHE UPLE'S JOURNEY FOR A SURROGATE SON
• GAY CHE MEN STOCK PHOTOS AND IMAG
• GAY CHA
• GAY EMPERORS CHE HISTORY
• THE HIDN LIV OF GAY MEN CHA
• GAY M/M CHA - (MOVI & DRAMAS)
• BEG GAY IN CHA (AS A FOREIGNER 2020-21) ?️‍? WHAT’S THE TTH?

BEG GAY CHA HAS GOTTEN HARR UNR XI JPG

A more assertive, self-reliant Cha has rulted  a subtle but nstant narrowg of gay spacPhotographer: GREG BAKER/AFPHello, I’m Colum Murphy, a reporter on our Cha ernment team based Beijg, wh a look at the steady erosn of gay life Cha.

There has been some excellent rearch to the emergence of gay and lbian inti Cha, cludg how the have been shaped by ro-Amerin ias of “gay sensibily” and characterised by “dividualy, difference, sophistitn, liberatn and morny”.

One 2018 study tailed gay bars Shanghai that rivalled those of any wtern pal, the anisatn of “pri” events and the tense ntexts which “queer” film ftivals and wir cultural productn and activism occur the face of ntued regulatn by the thorarian state.

A GAY MAN CHA

Inspired by those experienc, for the past eight years, I have been rryg out rearch wh gay men the regn and, 2018, pleted a PhD this explorg gay liv Haan. My rearch explor how gay men Haan unrstand themselv, build muni and negotiate the prsur to nform to the heterosexual life script of marriage and reproductn. I looked to how gay liv are figured out everyday teractns, how they are shaped by the spac which they unfold and how this plays out over time.

“When we get there, don’t say any gay stuff, ” Ah Tao warns me as we approach a shop the cut-out rner of a buildg at an tersectn wh an even narrower alley.

FOR CHA’S GAY MEN, DONGDAN PARK BEIJG OFFERS HAVEN

In the island’s biggt ci, Haikou and Sanya, there are gay bars and tablished cisg areas certa parks, centrally loted yet variably beyond the view of the wir public. Haikou’s current gay bar is accsed by climbg through a wdow on the fifth floor of an ageg tower block, out onto a balny, past a long dried-up swimmg pool and down a stg stairse.

In Sanya, the well trodn pathways that criss-cross a bamboo grove where the edge of a park meets a riverbank are a by gay meetg spot, while the cy’s gay bar, durg the time of my fieldwork, was aga loted a dised hotel.

In the spac, fears of beg “outed” and the possible damage this uld do to fay and profsnal relatnships, mean that, as I was warned by Ah Tao, is bt not to “say any gay stuff”. Careful regulatn of the language and knowledge that is allowed to circulate the spac ensur that gay men are only visible as gay men to one another.

FOUR YEARS, TWO NTENTS: A GAY CHE UPLE'S JOURNEY FOR A SURROGATE SON

Yet, the time spent the spac is marked by anxieti that, at any moment, cracks might appear the barrier between parallel gay and straight worlds.

In distct ways, gay spac Haan’s ci and towns are characterised by juxtaposns of visibily and visibily, centraly and margaly, prence and absence. Jt as gay spac Haan exist as cracks an otherwise heterosexual public sphere, so too do the time that gay men dite to socialisg gay muni.

GAY CHE MEN STOCK PHOTOS AND IMAG

But they are also a nstant prence everyday life, terptg moments of gay life – like the mundane and aggrsive remr Ah Tao received that he had “no wife, no children”. In the face of such prsur, many gay men Haan take much pleasure om their social and sexual relatnships wh other men and their sens of belongg to gay muni.

GAY CHA

But they often fear that the ways of livg are unstaable and that they mt eventually leave the gay world and nform to their fai and the wir society’s expectatns that they marry and have children. The thgs that make me happy are the gay iends that I’ve ma … we have a lot to talk about and we belong to the same scene, we’re all homosexuals. This has further entrenched the role of children as necsary rers for their ageg parents and gay men’s perceptns of their futur as oriented towards marriage and reproductn are wrapped up ncerns for self-prervatn.

GAY EMPERORS CHE HISTORY

The tense social stigma that is attached to viatns om heterosexualy means that public visibily as gay is unsirable, pecially smaller ci and towns where bumpg to an nt, uncle or -worker is a nstant ncern. Organised activism has arrived Haan too, wh the tablishment of a regnal branch of the Parents and Friends of Lbians and Gays Cha 2016. But this may signal at least some tert challengg the stat quo and the potential for future chang to gay liv Haan through greater public visibily and engagement wh activism.

THE HIDN LIV OF GAY MEN CHA

Whatever forms sexual polics and activism take Haan, close attentn should be paid to the ncerns and sir of gay men, lbians and other margalised genr and sexual groups. It may sound over the top but as I reflect on my time wh Ah Tao – and all I have learned om gay men Haan – I fd myself ntemplatg the meang of life. Xiao Cao, a 57-year-old gay man, performs as a cultural revolutn red guard at a 's gay muny has long been on the edg of society but is gradually beg more accepted.

GAY M/M CHA - (MOVI & DRAMAS)

As society Cha morniz, s gay muny is ls myster and creasgly part of the untry’s fabric, pursug dreams and happs like other settg out to document this story, I had a somewhat stereotypil image of gay Che – that they lived lorful and fortable liv, wh proment members often active the fashn and entertament dtri, that they wore exquise cloth and were top physil shape. Or you n pay 7 yuan (a ltle more than $1) to get to a gay dance club to fd someone you took some time to fd the ma character of my story. Drsg drag is not necsarily a strange phenomenon Cha, as men ually played women’s rol Pekg operas tim gone Cao told me that he realized he was gay when he was around 15 years old, junr high school.

For stance, most of the olr gay people I enuntered were married, some even had children, and had to keep their homosexual relatnships secret.

BEG GAY IN CHA (AS A FOREIGNER 2020-21) ?️‍? WHAT’S THE TTH?

”NEWSLETTER: Get the day’s top headl om Tim Edor Davan Maharaj >>For more than three s, Dongdan Park, one e east of Tiananmen Square, has attracted gay men om across Cha. Some seek a long-term love tert, some a one-time sex partner, others crimalized homosexualy 1997 and removed om s official list of mental illns four years later. Though same-sex marriage has not been legalized, Che media regularly report on high-profile gay home weddgs and gay upl gettg marriage certifit the Uned for many gay Che, is still difficult to buck social prsure to fd a spoe of the oppose sex and have children.

Topics clu cheatg heartbreakers, gay inty and how AIDS is and his five-person volunteer group have mimal ntact wh their ernment sponsors. Che media equently portray HIV/AIDS as a “gay disease, ” even though natnal statistics show heterosexual sex was the route of transmissn 66% of new s reported the first 10 months of 2014.

Zeng Yi, a profsor Confucianism at Tongji Universy, lled homosexualy “a crime agast humany” an say for the Shanghai-based news webse the Paper after the U. “Superstars don’t want to lose their heterosexual fans, and those polics need a ‘normal’ fay to survive and get promoted, ” said soclogist Li Yhe, a longtime advote for gay rights timat there are 39 ln to 52 ln gay men among Cha’s 1. Wh same-sex marriage unregnized, adoptn by gay upl prohibed and surrogacy banned, a majory of this group, she says, would marry women (cludg some lbians, who face a siar stigma).

Some eventually bee regulars, returng to seek a sense of the meantime, a few Che gay-rights activists persist phg for greater social regnn, and even marriage rights. “Cha needs to have reprentativ for the homosexual muny the Natnal People’s Congrs to brg up proposals of gay marriage for the revisn of the law, ” said knows he’s unlikely to bear wns to such a velopment. Li and Xu, a gay uple who have been together sce 2007, would walk out of the airport, get married two days later Los Angel, and, more important, start their journey toward 2015 to 2018, Li and Xu ma four transpacific trips as part of their gtatnal surrogacy procs.

They traveled nearly 50, 000 , spent more than $200, 000, and went through untls days of distrs, all to fulfill the dream of havg their own creasg number of Che gay men, like Li and Xu, are travelg thoands of and spendg hundreds of thoands of dollars to pursue a dream that is impossible at home. Photograph: Courty Quiguang Li and Wei XuFor this story, I spoke to a dozen gay Che men who have begun or pleted surrogacy the Uned Stat.

Although this ia is unr fierce attack om some Cha’s younger generatn, still ronat wh many young Che people, cludg some gay men who are asked, or volunteer, to have a child to protect the mianzi of their parents and some of the parents, that means gog as far as phg their sons to the surrogacy journey.