Shadows in the County Seat: A Dispatch from China’s Hidden LGBTQ Communities

During a recent trip back to my hometown for the Lunar New Year, I embarked on a personal “experiment.” I installed a social networking app on my phone that is immensely popular within China’s LGBTQ community. Although rumors suggested the app had been scrubbed from major app stores for “various reasons,” its local popularity appeared undiminished in practice.

The town where my parents reside is a “county seat” that seems to have been left behind by China’s relentless wave of development. It is a place characterized by a stifling sense of insulation. While the older generation may never have even heard the term “homosexual,” and the younger generation keeps the subject strictly behind closed doors, this quiet town is far from devoid of gay life. On the contrary, just a stone’s throw from my parents’ apartment complex, several men were actively using the app to seek “friends”—or, more candidly, one-night stands.

Though I had no intention of seeking a tryst, I engaged in several conversations with these local men as a form of field research. One of my more intriguing discoveries was the existence of small-scale LGBTQ organizations even here.

I visited a local branch of a national rights organization, staffed by a handful of earnest volunteers. Even as someone who has lived abroad for years and grew distant from the domestic community, I am acutely aware of how “unfriendly” the current climate has become. Their persistence in the face of such headwinds commanded my respect. I visited their office and was subsequently invited to several of their gatherings.

Based on the material gathered during my brief stay of less than a month, the following conclusions may carry a degree of personal subjectivity. Nevertheless, I wish to set aside prejudice and document the profound sense of cognitive dissonance and the stark realities I encountered there.

The first thing that struck me was the “dating logic” of contemporary Chinese gay men. They seem obsessed with labeling themselves with specific “roles,” striving to fit into rigid stereotypes. For instance, they define themselves strictly as “Pure 1s” (tops) or “Pure 0s” (bottoms). If a “1” desires to be penetrated, or a “0” wishes to penetrate, they are viewed as “heretical” within the community, often facing fierce criticism and exclusion.

When I spoke with the younger generation about my own relationship—one based on a versatile, non-fixed role dynamic—I was met with stunned silence. They went as far as to label such an arrangement a “betrayal” of the gay identity.

Even more startling was their obsession with defining relationships through titles like “husband and wife” (老公/老婆). My generation harbored a strong resistance to mimicking heteronormative frameworks; we always believed we should be “intimate partners”—equal companions. While homosexuality and heterosexuality may share an emotional essence, their “mode of existence” ought to be distinct. Watching them awkwardly force a heterosexual template onto same-sex relationships was deeply unsettling. The terms “hubby” and “wifey,” in particular, are saturated with the rigid gender biases specific to East Asia.

Indeed, among the two couples I met locally, one partner in each pair was deliberately performing “feminine” mannerisms. I do not mean to disparage femininity; everyone has the right to be their authentic self. However, I worry whether they have been misled into believing they have no other choice. Having escaped the norm that “a man must act like a man,” why have they thrown themselves into the shackles of another rigid script?

Finally, as a middle-aged gay man, I have recently become particularly concerned with the state of the older community.

This trip home revealed a sobering fact: between half and two-thirds of the active gay men in this small town belong to the middle-aged or elderly demographic, with some as old as their seventies. While this may not represent all of China, my parents’ city is a classic “outflow city,” where the youth flock to metropolises. Once their parents pass away, the chances of these young people returning to this inconvenient town are slim. Although I lack official statistics, the town’s demographic must be heavily skewed toward the elderly.

“If the town is full of old people, the gay community will naturally be aged.” This demographic inevitability pushed the desolate reality of provincial life right to the front of my screen.

Of the older gay men I encountered, the vast majority were either currently married to women or had been in the past. My informal data suggests that at least 90% had married the opposite sex, and shockingly, over 20% had been through two or more such marriages.

When asked why they married women and whether their wives knew of their orientation, the answers were identical: “It was a social requirement,” or “Pressure from parents.” Regarding their wives’ awareness, most chose silence; only two admitted their wives knew.

One had already divorced, sacrificing most of his assets and child custody in the process. The other’s answer was unexpected: his wife is still actively maintaining the marriage because she firmly believes her husband will one day “change back” (be cured) to heterosexuality.

I pushed further, asking these married men what kind of same-sex relationship they sought. Two-thirds desired a “fixed, long-term relationship,” while only a few preferred something casual.

I then asked those seeking long-term stability: “Could you allow your partner to have other partners—an open relationship?” They rejected the idea in unison. Their reasoning was that if a relationship is to be long-term, the other party must remain loyal; otherwise, it is a “moral failing.”

I couldn’t help but point out: “You are currently married men pursuing same-sex affairs. This is, by definition, infidelity. By the standards of conventional morality, isn’t this also unacceptable?”

Comically, they fought back, their arguments boiling down to the claim that “a heterosexual marriage should not be a shackle on a same-sex relationship.” They maintain a heterosexual family life on one hand while demanding absolute “loyalty” from both their wives and their male partners on the other. Realizing that further debate was futile, I fell silent.

At the end of my trip, I attended a “Family Exchange Meeting” hosted by the local LGBTQ organization and its sister agencies. At the meeting, out individuals and parents who had accepted their children’s orientation shared their experiences. In East Asian families, parental acceptance is a high bar. I had high hopes for this event, thinking these stories could provide emotional support for those still in the closet.

However, the reality of the meeting was eerie and absurd.

Several mothers who claimed to “accept their sons as gay” stated in unison: “As long as there is a child, parents can accept it.”

Could the true meaning of the “reconciliation with the birth family” advocated by this organization actually be “letting gay men have children”? Medical common sense tells us that men do not have uteri, and artificial womb technology is far from practical. Where, then, do these “children for gay men” come from? Is it by deceiving women into marriage, or through “surrogacy”? Both methods fill me with a sense of profound discomfort and revulsion.

Deceiving a woman into marriage is fundamentally immoral. If a wife is viewed merely as a reproductive tool, where is her dignity? And a surrogacy system that completely objectifies human beings is equally terrifying. In China, surrogacy is illegal—how are they obtaining these children and navigating the household registration process? Even if the government is desperate over falling birth rates, has it become so complicit as to look the other way?

It is one thing for the men involved to discuss how to obtain offspring, but how can these mothers—women themselves—so naturally advocate for a path that exploits other young women?

I left feeling deeply pained and utterly bewildered.