Queering motherhood in contemporary China: building lesbian families through transnational reproductive travel

Along with the development of the same-sex equality movement, the advance of New Reproductive Technologies (NRTs), as well as the rise of fertility business on a global scale, the past few decades have witnessed the strengthened desire for procreative families in queer communities. Nevertheless, most existing studies of NRTs target heterosexual infertile couples, while current literature on queer reproduction largely focuses on Euro-American settings, leaving queer reproductive practices in non-Western societies largely unexplored.This is a multi-sited ethnography of queer women’s “ontological choreography” (Charis Thompson 2007) of reproductive practices and family building in contemporary China. Drawing on auto-ethnography, in-depth interviews, participant observation, as well as textual analysis, it examines the desires, struggles, and multiple negotiations of queer Chinese women in their transnational reproductive projects. On the one hand, cross-border reproductive tourism has provided new possibilities for queer women in China, who are banned from access to NRTs in China. On the other hand, same-sex parenthood remains fundamentally vulnerable in the current socio-political context of China, given that childbirth out of (heterosexual) wedlock continues to be categorized as out-of-plan birth by the state, and same-sex partnership is neither socially recognized nor legally protected. Within a transnational field of multiplying possibilities and persisting restraints, this study documents the diverse and strategic choreographies queer women develop in relation to technology, kinship, financial, legal, political, social, and familial matters to gain legitimacy as co-mothers in China. This research contextualizes queer reproduction in the Chinese setting, provides new insights for discussion about queer reproductive justice, and contributes to anthropological studies of queer kinship and ARTs.過去的數十年間，同志平權運動持續壯大，人工輔助生殖技術不斷發展，並推動著生殖產業在全球範圍內的興起。種種變化，使同志社群生育成家的渴望日漸強烈。然而，現有大多數生殖技術研究聚焦於不孕不育的異性戀夫婦，僅有的酷兒生育研究也主要集中在歐美社會。而非西方世界酷兒的生育成家實踐，則甚少被記錄與討論。本論文即是一個關注當代中國拉拉生育成家的多點民族志研究。借助Charis Thompson所提出的“本體論編舞（ ontological choreography 作為核心理論資源，本研究通過深入訪談、參與觀察及文本分析，展現拉拉在跨國生殖實踐背後的渴望、掙扎及多重協商與編排。一方面，中國法律明令禁止醫療機構為單身女性實施人工輔助生殖技術，而跨境生殖旅遊則為渴望成為母親的拉拉們提供了一種新的可能性。但另一方面，鑒於中國當前的社會政治情境，非婚生育仍被劃分為“計劃外生育”，因違反國家及地方計劃生育政策而無法享受生育相關的社會保障。同時，由於與正統異性戀家庭範式相悖，同性伴侶關係既不受社會認可，也不受法律保護。這意味著同性伴侶在生養孩子的過程中將面臨諸多挑戰與困難。在交織著可能性與重重限制的跨國場域之中，本研究記錄了拉拉在生殖技術、血緣中心論、經濟資源、法律、政治、社會及家庭等多重因素構成的張力間不斷探索與協商，通過多樣化、策略性的編排，在同性婚姻不合法的社會中，為其“母親”的身份爭取合法性。本研究將拉拉生育成家的實踐放置於中國的具體社會政治情境中檢視，嘗試為酷兒生育公平、多元成家、人類學的生殖技術和親屬研究等提供新的討論視角。Zhong, Xinle."December 2020."M.Phil. Chinese University of Hong Kong 2021.Includes bibliographical references.Abstracts also in Chinese.Title from PDF title page (viewed on October 19, 2022)