Sexualities, Genders and Rights in Asia: International Conference of Asian Queer Studies (2005)

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/1885/116791

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Open Access
A study on the sexuality of transsexuals in Hong Kong
(Canberra, ACT: The Australian National University) Lam, Lisa Yuen Man; Yim, Chun Wah; AsiaPacificQueer Network
"In the following parts, we will first of all introduce the general situation transsexuals face in Hong Kong, followed by a report and discussion on the interview results of three Male-to Female (MtF) transsexuals regarding their sex and gender identity, sexual desire and how they experience their bodies in sex before and after their sex reassignment surgery. Through scrutinizing the subjects’ sexuality out of a clinical discourse and affirming the subjects’ sexual experiences, we hope to probe insight into the complexities and ambiguities of our sexuality formation and culture."
Open Access
The creature of asexual love in 'My Name is Shingo'
(Canberra, ACT: The Australian National University) Someya, Yasuyo; AsiaPacificQueer Network
This article discusses the story of Kazuo Umezu’s book, Watashi wa Shingo (My name is Shingo) (1982-1986) within the context of asexuality. Readers see how two elementary school pupils, a girl named Marine and a boy named Satoru, fall in love and are blessed with a rather unorthodox child which happens to be a robot. This robot is called Shingo and the story recounts how its mind develops and how it travels the world in pursuit of its ‘parents’ whom it has never had the chance to meet. The reason why I would like to discuss the comic book, My Name is Shingo, is because it hints at children’s asexual reproduction, as well as child asexuality, which, I think, contributes significantly to the intensity and uniqueness of the story. In this article I would like to consider the meaning of ‘asexuality’ and whether there exists any similarities between asexuality of children and that of adults.
Open Access
Lesbian identity and community projects in Beijing: notes from the field on studying and theorising same-sex cultures in the age of globalisation
(Canberra, ACT: The Australian National University) Engebretsen, Elisabeth; AsiaPacificQueer Network
"This paper is based on ongoing ethnographic fieldwork for my PhD in Anthropology, and is a research project that investigates same-sex desire and cultures among women in Mainland urban China, mainly in Beijing and on the Internet. The ambitions with this project are for one to contribute knowledge about the variations and similarities in human sexuality and culture, by way of studying a rarely prioritised category of people (lesbian-identified women) in a relatively seldom studied locale (urban China). And second, I hope to connect ideologies about sexual identity to wider social and cultural economies of change and inter-exchange in this particular moment in history often referred to as an age of ‘globalisation’."
Open Access
Indonesian intersections of bisexuality and transgender
(Canberra, ACT: The Australian National University) Graham, Sharyn; AsiaPacificQueer Network
This article analyses the intersections of bisexuality and transgender in South Sulawesi, Indonesia. While there are no equivalent indigenous terms, there are cognate identities and experiences that make such an examination valid and fruitful. The article is divided into three main sections. After a brief introduction, I introduce two gendered identities which fall outside normative models: calabai’ (transgendered males) and calalai’ (transgendered females). In the second section I recount specific examples of bisexuality and transgender intersection. A critical analysis of these intersections reveals much about representations and understandings of desire, sexuality, and gender. The theoretical contributions which arise from this analysis are proposed in the third section where I argue that the conceptual categories imposed by rigid Western terminology are rendered problematic when considering the intersection between bisexuality and transgender in South Sulawesi. As such, in South Sulawesi experiences of bisexuality and transgender must be explored from a perspective which allows appreciation of their coalescence.
Open Access
Shifting markets, shifting risks: HIV/AIDS prevention and the geographies of male and transgender tourist-orientated sex work in Phuket, Thailand
(Canberra, ACT: The Australian National University) Gallagher, Rory; AsiaPacificQueer Network
"Sex tourism has received minimal attention in academic arenas and consequently remains under-theorized and restrictively conceptualized as brief sex-for-money exchanges between heterosexual men and brothel-based female sex workers. However, these images are becoming increasingly divorced from the realities of Thailand’s sex tourism industry in the twenty first century. Rather than taking mono-dimensional approaches to the phenomenon, new conceptual frameworks must be developed that can accommodate the growing heterogeneity of sex tourists and workers, and the complex interplay between gendered, raced and economic powers involved in these encounters. They must also recognize the increasing variety of sexual-economic exchanges; with the shift towards more protracted and less commercialised liaisons in a more diverse set of locations. This trend has created acute problems for HIV/AIDS prevention policy-makers, who are under growing pressure to provide targeted cost-effective prevention strategies due to the current climate of international HIV policy, which many perceive as increasingly treatment-orientated."
Open Access
Flying the rainbow flag in Asia
(Canberra, ACT: The Australian National University) Sanders, Douglas; AsiaPacificQueer Network
Fifty years ago homosexual acts were illegal in all the countries that trace their legal systems back to the British common law. Public authorities, media and social attitudes throughout the West treated homosexuality as illicit, often unmentionable. There was a tradition of seeing homosexuality as a foreign vice – the Greek vice or the French vice or an Oriental vice – not a local vice. In 2005, after forty years of reforms, criminal laws that target homosexual acts are gone in the West. Entry into the European Union is conditional on laws prohibiting discrimination in the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Marriage has been opened to same-sex couples in the Netherlands, Belgium, the state of Massachusetts, Canada and Spain. Same-sex marriage was a major issue in the 2004 American presidential election. ‘Human rights’ play an important role in modern states. Respect for ‘human rights’ is a marker if the legitimacy of regimes. The globalising agenda is clear in Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s well-known description of human rights as the “common language of humanity”.
Open Access
A semantic look at feminine sex and gender terms in Philippine gay lingo
(Canberra, ACT: The Australian National University) Suguitan, Cynthia Grace B.; AsiaPacificQueer Network
Gayspeak, like other languages, is constantly changing. But unlike other languages, words and terms in this colourful tongue undergo change so quickly that it would be impossible to come up with a dictionary of the language that wouldn’t become obsolete within a matter of months, weeks, or even days. In spite of this, there is a thread that holds this language together, and that is freedom, freedom from the rules and dictates of society. Part one of this paper gives the definitions and etymological backgrounds of certain feminine sex and gender terms in gay lingo. Part two compares the reactions of the gay community to these words with the reactions of the mainstream society to the English or Filipino counterparts of these words. Part three examines how the use of feminine sex and gender terms in gay lingo reflects and reinforces the Philippine gay community’s attitude towards women.
Open Access
Queer(ing) Taiwan and its future: from an agenda of mainstream self-enlightenment to one of sexual citizenship
(AsiaPacifiQueer Network) Chu, Wei-Cheng Raymond
As parts of an ongoing reflection on the tongzhi (roughly equivalent to lesbian/gay/queer, hereafter abbreviated as l/g/q) developments in Taiwan, three critical theses are put forward in this essay. The first is a historical understanding of the excitingly prosperous l/g/q emergence in the 1990s. I offer here a contextual analysis which views this phenomenal rise as the amplified effects of what I call a ‘self-enlightening’ process pursued by the mainstream society since the democratization process started in the late 1980s. Yet as fortunate as it seems, this coincidence also dictated the specific form the l/g/q movement has taken as well as caused its apparent ‘cool-off’ near the year 2000. The second is the follow-up critical observation, along the line already mapped out, on the latest change of direction – i.e. what I call the ‘civic turn’ of the l/g/q movement since 2000. This in effect further proves my thesis put forth in the first section and also points at a general perspective on the relative strength (or lack of it) of the Taiwan society versus political power. At the end, O distinguish the l/g/q civil movement in Taiwan from its US counterpart by showing the local transformations of this largely imported discourse with the purpose of providing a glocal comparative framework. To further demonstrate the glocal difference, I also anticipate the historical significance of this new phase of development itself as well as for Taiwan in general.
Open Access
Sexual orientation discrimination in Hongkong: a report
(Canberra, ACT: The Australian National University) Chan, Connie Man-Wai; AsiaPacificQueer Network
" ... homophobic attitudes can overshadow the lives of lesbian and bisexual people in Hong Kong today ... a questionnaire survey ... sought to conduct initial research into the nature and extent of sexual orientation discrimination in Hongkong. The survey was carried out by the LBT human rights group Women Coalition of HKSAR(WC) and represents the second investigations conducted in HK under the same issue. The central purpose of this report is to call attention to the extent of sexual orientation discrimination in Hongkong, and to increase the awareness of discrimination cases to Hongkong government, in response to the needs of legislation against discrimination as soon as possible."
Open Access
Schoolgirl romance and female same-sex love in Eileen Chang’s Tongxue shaonian dou bujian: toward a tortured and tortuous Po’s narrative
(Canberra, ACT: The Australian National University) Chen, Yuxin; AsiaPacificQueer Network
"Eileen Chang's autobiographical Tongxue shaonian dou bujian, which was published in Taiwan and China in 2004, has aroused debates about whether the work is authentic or not; it has also aroused the “Chang-fever” revealed in various cultural products. One reason readers suspect that this is not actually written by Chang is the obvious homoerotic description. This is in direct contrast to the fact that readers’ voyeuristic interest has mostly centered on Eileen Chang’s two heterosexual romances and has neglected the possibility of her representation of same-sex love relationship in the subsequent “Chang-fever”. Many scholars in Chang studies have even written articles from seemingly objective positions to prove that the heterosexual anecdotes in her novels did occur in her life, so that it has become a convention in Chang studies to connect her real life and her novels primarily through her heterosexual experience. However, not surprisingly, the homosexual description in Tongxue shaonian dou bujian has rarely been discussed in Chang studies either in Taiwan or China"
Open Access
Male sexual health: Kathoeys in the Lao PDR, South East Asia - exploring a gender minority
(Canberra, ACT: The Australian National University) Doussantousse, Serge; Keovongchith, Bea; AsiaPacificQueer Network
"This paper explores transgender (TG) males, who are a sexual minority in the Lao PDR. In both the Lao PDR and Thailand transgender males are commonly known as Kathoeys or Ladyboys, and although research has been done on Kathoeys in Thailand (Totman, 2003), none has so far been conducted in the Lao PDR. Social sciences research in the Lao PDR is still developing, and so far the focus has been on ‘normal’ male and female studies and therefore this paper intends to begin to fill the gap in the literature."
Open Access
The making of a local queen in an international transsexual beauty contest
(Canberra, ACT: The Australian National University) Wong, Ying Wuen; AsiaPacificQueer Network
This paper will examine the intricacies in beauty contests and the tensions brought about by the negotiation of a local, authentic culture in the face of Western-derived notions of beauty and femininity. Thailand’s many beauty contests feature as an inept part of Thai society, with an emphasis on the ‘public face’ and beauty. Thailand has been romanticised as a land of beautiful women and more recently, of beautiful kathoey. One of the aims of my paper is to determine the importance of beauty contests, not just as ‘anti-pageants’, but as a means to consolidate a transsexual identity. However, it can also be shown that beauty contests are both sites of empowerment and subjugation simultaneously.
Open Access
Same-sex issues in a cross-cultural perspective: the strange similarities between John Howard and Mahathir Mohamad
(Canberra, ACT: The Australian National University) Johnson, Carol; AsiaPacificQueer Network
"This paper focuses on the Howard government’s opposition to the recognition of same-sex relationships in Australia. That case study is then contrasted with the views of a very different politician, whose “Asian values” approach has led to critiques of western attitudes towards homosexuality, namely Dr Mahathir Mohamad. Contrary to Mahathir’s analysis, his own views are shown to show strong similarities with those of John Howard. In short, while there may be significant differences in the lgbtq identities across cultures, there can be surprising similarities in the heteronormative discourses which marginalise those identities"
Open Access
Uniquely positioned? Lived experiences of lesbian, gay and bisexual Asian muslims in Britain
(Canberra, ACT: The Australian National University) Yip, Andrew Kam-Tuck; AsiaPacificQueer Network
This paper highlights some of my reflections on the data drawn from an empirical research project entitled A Minority within a Minority: British Non- heterosexual Muslims, conducted in 2001 and 2002. Specifically, the project explored three dimensions of the lived experiences of non-heterosexual (specifically lesbian, gay, and bisexual; Hereinafter ‘LGB’ ) Muslims who are primarily of South Asian origin. These dimensions are (a) individual/cognitive (e.g. how they reconciled their sexuality with religious faith, given the pervasive censure of homosexuality); (b) interpersonal (e.g. how they managed social relationships with potentially stigmatising social audiences such as family members, kin, and their ethnic/religious community); and (c) intergroup (e.g. how they managed social relationships with potentially supportive social audiences such as the broader LGB community which is predominantly ‘white’ and secular). The 42 participants (20 women and 22 men) – recruited primarily through support groups, LGB Press and personal networks – were interviewed individually for about two hours. In addition, two focus group interviews were conducted. Most of the sample lived in Greater London, and the vast majority were under the age of 30, and highly educated (for more details about the research methodology and the sample, see Yip 2003). Owing to space I shall only highlight some prominent empirical and theoretical issues here, with references to more detailed discussions I have offered elsewhere.
Open Access
Gay specificity: the re-working of heteronormative discourse in the Hong Kong gay community
(Canberra, ACT: The Australian National University) Lau, Hoi Leung; AsiaPacificQueer Network
This qualitative research is a study on the specific culture of the gay community in Hong Kong. Mainstream academic research in Hong Kong gay community has mostly focused on the construction and formation of gay identity and gay culture especially under the postcolonial context of Hong Kong. By adopting narrative analysis of the life histories of gay men, the research focus has been placed upon their self-recognition of gay identity, closet practices, coming out process, and sexual and intimate relationship. In response to this mainstream agenda, this study purports to two relatively neglected empirical phenomena concerning Hong Kong gay community, namely the adoption of zero-one role division and the marginalisation of the sissy gay men. These two contentious issues define my research focus.
Open Access
What is necessary for us, for our queer movement in Japan
(Canberra, ACT: The Australian National University) Hibino, Makoto; AsiaPacificQueer Network
I am a bisexual or polysexual activist in Japan. So at first, I would point out the discrimination against bisexuals within our queer communities. Do you know about Bisexuals? Let’s confirm some basic facts. (1) Some people think that bisexual is the way or process to get the identity of lesbian or gay. (2) Many people are especially interested in one’s gender. (3)The bisexual opinion is, I think, different from the lesbian and gay viewpoints.
Open Access
Excavating desire: queer heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region
(Canberra, ACT: The Australian National University) Byrne, Denis; AsiaPacificQueer Network
"How might we define the term ‘queer heritage’? We could choose to define it as encompassing the whole culture of ‘queerness’ that we have in a sense ‘inherited’ from the past. And that would include everything from our politics to our language to our literature. In other words, it would constitute the passing on of a tradition of what it has meant to be queer in this part of the world. What I am concerned with here, however, is restricted to the physical places and landscapes created or inhabited by homosexuals in the Asia-Pacific region in the past. These would include the buildings or outdoor spaces that we have lived in, danced in, or had sex in. The places where we have created gardens, painted, written novels, or fallen in love. It would include gay beaches and gay beach resorts, the sites of lesbian music camps, famous cruising areas in public parks or shopping malls, saunas and sex clubs, gay hairdressers, drag clubs, gay and lesbian discos. It would also, of course, include sites of discrimination and physical violence against us."
Open Access
ICCGL: cultural communication via the internet and GLBT community building in China
(Canberra, ACT: The Australian National University) Jiang, Hui; AsiaPacificQueer Network
This paper introduces the states of existence and characteristics of gay websites in mainland China. Based on the work and experience of the Information Clearinghouse for Chinese Gays and Lesbians (ICCGL) and its website GayChinese.net in the past six years, it also discusses the operation and significance of this NGO whose major attempts to reveal aspects of gay life in contemporary China by analysing the various cultural conflicts emerging within or in relation to the gay websites.
Open Access
Ethics of represeNtATION: media and the Indian queer
(Canberra, ACT: The Australian National University) Satpathy, Sumanyu; AsiaPacificQueer Network
Emboldened by a greater public awareness of alterity and sexual freedom whether through the technological revolution, globalisation, accessibility, or for any other reason – playwrights, film directors, and the media in general in India have begun experimenting with representation of what arguably have been hitherto forbidden pleasures and ‘realities’. Alternative sexuality is one such taboo subject in Indian cultural history. Due to the same reasons, similarly, gay and lesbian groups have gained greater visibility, and are pressing for their rights, legal or otherwise. Two key issues that feature in the title of my paper, I wish to take up for discussion in the course of the presentation. i. The idea of representation as it features in contemporary aesthetics and cultural studies and ii.The question of ethics in postmodern philosophy.
Open Access
From enter the dragon to enter the mullet: exploring filmic representations of east Asia butch dykes by Asian queer women filmmakers in contemporary Canada
(Canberra, ACT: The Australian National University) Lin, Hui-Ling; AsiaPacificQueer Network
This paper is like a pilot project for my doctoral research and it is very much a work in progress. In my doctoral research I am looking at the filmic representations of transmigrant East Asian queer women in contemporary Canada. While addressing sexuality, the term “queer” also encompasses the intersection of multiple identities such as race and gender. I use the word, “transmigrant” rather migrant or immigrant, as Martin Manalansan suggests, to address “the multi-stranded relationships” (Manalansan 2000: 185) such mobile groups have with both their home and settlement countries. I especially want to focus on two aspects of this research. The first is an examination of how the racialised, queered, and gendered body is presented, appropriated, or subverted in films about and by Asian queer women. Secondly, I want to look at the “monolithic” representation of Asian women in much Western discourse and how differences are delineated by Asian queer women from their own perceptions and interpretations. I will mainly look at the work of transmigrant queer women from filmmakers from Taiwan, China, and Hong Kong who identify themselves as non-heterosexual, and who live or stay in two highly multicultural Canadian cities: Vancouver and Toronto.