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
• FOUR YEARS, TWO NTENTS: A GAY CHE UPLE'S JOURNEY FOR A SURROGATE SON
• THE HIDN LIV OF GAY MEN CHA
• UNRSTANDG CHE GAY MEN’S AND LBIANS’ EXPERIENC OF COPG WH THE PRSURE TO MARRY OM THE LENS OF SUZHI DISURSE

BEG GAY CHA HAS GOTTEN HARR UNR XI JPG

Durg this year’s Pri Month, soccer star Li Yg ma history as Cha’s first female athlete to e out publicly as gay, a ndid seri of celebratory photos posted on social media, showg her posg happily alongsi her partner. In years past, June was filled wh LGBTQ (lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr and queer) events major ci such as Shanghai and Beijg, durg which Cha’s sexual mori uld semi-openly celebrate their inty. Some LGBTQ people have blamed the crackdown on the rrect imprsn that homosexualy is a Wtern import to Cha, and groups supportg gay rights are liable to filtratn by foreign forc.

Some also spect a more direct lk between the crackdown on LGBTQ rights and top officials’ worldviews, which for many were shaped durg the Cultural Revolutn the 1960s and ’70s, when thori attempted to purge any “non-socialist” elements — cludg homosexualy — om Che society.

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

My Interts My Content Newsletters Watchlist Settgs Acunt Subscriptn Billg Help Center Sign Out Subscribe Markets Enomics Indtri Tech AI Polics Wealth Pursus Opn Bsweek Equaly Green CyLab Crypto A more assertive, self-reliant Cha has rulted  a subtle but nstant narrowg of gay spacPhotographer: GREG BAKER/AFPFebary 17, 2022 at 7:28 AM ESTHello, I’m Colum Murphy, a reporter on our Cha ernment team based Beijg, wh a look at the steady erosn of gay life Cha. 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.

THE HIDN LIV OF GAY MEN CHA

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. 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. Several Amerin surrogacy agenci and fertily clics told me that they’d seen a surge Che clients, startg around 2013, wh gay people makg up a signifint portn of the clientele.

Photograph: Courty Quiguang Li and Wei Xu“Enomic velopment Cha … has created a number of middle-class people, cludg those who are homosexual, ” observ Zhijun Hu, who, unr the noted alias “Ah Qiang”, has been workg as an LGBTQ+ activist Cha for more than 20 years. Havg an Amerin baby through surrogacy has now bee a popular and accsible life goal for urban gay men day after they ma through ctoms, Xu and Li went to the HRC Fertily Clic Pasana center for sperm llectn. 885 – for every 1, 000 male newborns, there are only 885 femal – rankg last among all 153 untri US agenci and clics nfirm that gay Che tend parents have a noticeable preference for sons, though some note that they see the same preference across gay men of all wanted a son.

Diego tomatilly obtaed US cizenship, and Xu wants him to learn English se he wants to go back at some pot his nsult wh other gay dads about how to look after and te a child. In the Group for Dads of Amerin Babi chat group, they ask qutns about practil thgs like supplements and discs the challeng of parentg, which is still generally viewed as a woman’s duty Zhou, a member of the chat group who is expectg his baby to be born through surrogacy 2020, says that most gay Che parents are particularly eager for rmatn about how to parent.

UNRSTANDG CHE GAY MEN’S AND LBIANS’ EXPERIENC OF COPG WH THE PRSURE TO MARRY OM THE LENS OF SUZHI DISURSE

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. 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”. 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”. 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.

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. 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. 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.