"Chineseness" and Tongzhi in (Post)colonial Diasporic Hong Kong

In this thesis, I examine how colonial constructs on Chinese culture affects people's views toward sexual minorities in Hong Kong. In the first Chapter, I explain the shift of my research focus after I started my research. I also conduct a brief literature review on existing literature on sexual minorities in mainland China and Hong Kong. In the second Chapter, I examine interviewees' accounts of family pressure and perceived conflicts between their religious beliefs and sexual orientation. I analyze interviewees' perceptions of social attitudes toward sexual minorities. Hidden in these narratives is an internalized colonial construct of Chinese culture in Hong Kong. This construct prevented some interviewees from connecting Christianity with oppression toward sexual minorities in Hong Kong.

In the third Chapter, I examine the rise of right-wing Christian activism in pre- and post- handover Hong Kong. I also analyze how sexual-minority movement organizations and right-wing Christians organized in response to the political situation in Hong Kong. Then, I present the result of content analysis on debates around two amendments to the Domestic Violence Ordinance (DVO)-the first legislation related to sexual minorities in Hong Kong after handover. I draw on data from online news archives and meeting minutes and submissions of the Legislative Council (LegCo). Based on the rhetoric of US right-wing Christians' "(nuclear) family values," Hong Kong right-wing Christians supported excluding same-sex cohabiting partners from the DVO. This rhetoric carved out a space for different narratives about "Chinese culture" and "Chinese family." These different versions of Chinese culture matched diasporic sentiment toward the motherland and gained currency from post-handover political landscape and power configuration in Hong Kong. These versions also revealed the colonized and diasporic mindset of opponents of the amendments; these mindsets also reflect the same internalized colonial construct of "Chineseness" my interviewees have. Based on analyses of interview data in Chapter II and in Chapter III of how people view sexual minorities, I argue that a colonial diasporic psyche aptly captures people's views toward sexual minorities in Hong Kong. Since the political situation and DVO are specific to Hong Kong, I do not include interviewees who are not of Hong Kong origin in this thesis.