Like so many young people today in China, the two men met online. According to Sun Wenlin, a tech consultant and, at age twenty-six, the younger of the pair, it had been “love at first sight.” Hu Mingliang, who is thirty-seven years old and the more reticent of the two, works as a security guard. In June, 2015, on the first anniversary of the day they met, they walked to the local civil-affairs bureau to apply for a marriage license. They were turned away, but, unlike the tens of millions of Chinese who have resigned themselves to sexual identities unrecognized by the state, Sun decided to file a lawsuit. It was the first of its kind in China, and asked for the legalization of same-sex marriage. The case was rejected by the court, but not before garnering attention and support from around the world. Sun and Hu’s open appeal to the legal system was indisputably a step forward for L.G.B.T.Q. rights and a testament to their commitment to each other. And yet the two men—one from the country, one from the city—had taken somewhat different journeys, shaped not only by the contradictions of the country today but by the long history of homosexuality in China. [...]
“Chinese society has always prioritized the collective over the individual,” Yu Haiqing, a professor of Chinese culture and media at the University of New South Wales, told me. “People did what they did in private, but there wasn’t public protection for it, because it seemed irrelevant to the practical goal of perpetuating the family line.” One reason it has been difficult to discuss the codification of L.G.B.T.Q. rights is that the very notion of individual rights has been contested in recent years, and not just in the political realm. As Yu put it, “When you are living with multiple generations of your family and your life is enmeshed with theirs, it’s hard to imagine rebelling against the norm.” [...]
In some ways, Sun Wenlin and Hu Mingliang are the embodiment of this evolving China. Sun, the more urbane of the couple, was the one to insist on lodging the petition. His city-dwelling parents have been fully supportive of his legal battle, and he has rarely shied away from media attention. Sun has declared more than once that he does not want to be a spokesman for all gay people in China but is fighting for himself as an individual. By contrast, his partner, Hu, whose parents still live in the Hunan countryside, felt somewhat differently. Months before the two men filed their suit, Hu had brought Sun home to meet his family, and the experience left a deep impression. Prior to going home, Hu had felt trepidation about coming out to people he had known all his life. But his family and childhood friends did not reject him. “If you know someone who is gay, that changes your perspective,” Hu said, voicing his hope that the recognition of gay marriage might affect not only him but the country at large. “It just takes exposure.”
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