Queer Sisters is a social support group for queer women and has been active in holding workshops and public seminars, producing media materials on issues related to sexualities, discrimination and counselling. The core coordinator of the hotline, Eunice, who joined Queer Sisters in 1997, noticed that before the year 2000 callers were mostly troubled by relationship issues, how and where to meet other women, and basic queries on the primary causes of homosexuality (Tang 2011). In phone calls to the hotline between 2000 and 2003, as Eunice noted, ‘the age range changed’ as older callers rather than younger ones were using the hotline to find out how to meet others. At this time, younger women in their twenties or thirties usually had access to the Internet and could locate activities and join community groups relatively easily. Since 2003, Eunice has been receiving calls from older, married women and other women over the age of forty inquiring about how to meet other women in the same age cohort or with similar life experiences. Married women have also asked Eunice for advice on how to deal with their husbands and children if their sexuality is revealed to these family members. However, the number of calls has remained low since 2003 as going online has become the norm for social organising and obtaining community information and emotional support.
As the younger generation has become more connected online and more savvy at obtaining information, they have also become aware of their sexual rights earlier in their self-identification process as neoitungzi. This phenomenon is echoed by Connie’s observation in her regular contact with neoitungzi in their teens and early twenties. As the main organiser of political and social events for the Women’s Coalition of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and as a core committee member for Hong Kong’s annual Pride Parade, Connie works at Amnesty International and has been active in the LGBT social movement since 1992. During our interview, she commented on the current scene as being ‘very different’ and referred to the Internet as the key agent of change both in the social scene and on the political front. Connie continued, ‘But for this generation, they only need to take one look and they can see a lot of things and learn a great deal. They know the differences between TB and TBG. They can surf the Net’. When I asked Connie how younger women view love and romance, she said, ‘I think the younger generation have more complex love stories because they are fully aware of their identities as lesbians. They can see more clearly when they are being discriminated against’. Connie even suggested that the younger generation are not shy about coming out and are open about their lesbian sexualities with their teachers and peers. One of the primary reasons can be traced back to the accessibility of information on same-sex sexualities and the sharing of coming-out stories on the Internet. She later stressed, however, that this form of openness does not mean immediate acceptance by school authorities or peers. Rather, the younger generation often faces increased discrimination precisely because they have come out so readily.