How to Cite
License (Chapter)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Identifiers (Book)
Published
Moving with Precarity
Transnational Mobility of Chinese Queer “Single” Women
Abstract A central question of this chapter is—Do the aspiration and ability to move have something to do with the queer women’s presumed “single” status in a heteronormative society like China? “Single” is put in scare quotes here because the women I discuss in this chapter are regarded as single only in the sense that they are not in a heterosexual marriage or attached to men. I focus on the intersection of gender, sexuality, and singleness to explore the role of mobility (mainly transnational) in urban queer single women’s search for autonomy and respectability. I interviewed thirty-two “mobile queer women” in China and Australia, as well as, two women from Hong Kong who were residing in Europe at the time of the interview, between 2015 and 2018. The study of queer women highlights the neglected fact that singleness can be a form of public (mis)recognition or self-representation of queer women in a heteronormative society. The lives they lead can be very different from popular stereotypes of single women in a heterosexual context. Their experiences demonstrate the complexity of the meaning of “being single” and the internal diversity of the category of “single women” in Chinese cities.
Keywords queer single women; queer mobility; queer migration; Chinese lesbians; single women in China
