Traversing Liminality: Gay Leisure Spaces and Identity Formation in Contemporary Chinese Society

This article applies queer insights to liminality theories. It proposes a nuanced analysis of queer lived spatiotemporalities extending beyond the optimism toward a politics of liminality. It draws on ethnographic research tracing gay men’s embodied experiences and identity-making in gay leisure spaces in Chengdu, China. The results show how highly ambiguous and intersectional gay experiences include a constant negotiation between sexual liberation and social responsibilities, and they question liminality as always subversive and transformative in a linear sense. I argue that gay leisure spaces can be highly scripted by codes of conduct enacted through state apparatuses that sustain heteronormativity. While some gay spaces in China are tolerated in certain economic and cultural modes, they are fundamentally structured by formal (legal systems) and informal institutions (moralities and social norms). I advocate an extended power analysis of neoliberal leisure spaces concerning the promotion of equal rights for LGBTQ + people.