Changing contours of normality

Sweeping changes have taken place in China across the past four decades in the social, economic and political spheres. The one child policy, various amendments to the marriage law, the introduction of a market economy and free job market, and the increasing mobility of people within the country, to name just a few factors that steer people’s private lives and intimate relationships, demonstrate that a revolution is underway in private lives in China. The debates on the stigmatisation of single women and the bachelor crisis in rural areas call into question the problematic gender assumptions and role expectations in heterosexual marriage. To the younger generations of lesbians and gays in China, the pressure to marry is consistently ranked as the major source of stress in their everyday life. Discontent in tongzhi communities concerning compulsory marriage is growing. Lesbians and gays are exploring alternative forms of intimacy and family. The boundaries of normality surrounding people’s intimate lives will continue to be contested in China for years to come.