RESUMEN
Family members often cite broader societal discourses and norms when forcing Chinese queer people to engage in heterosexual marriage (referred to as HMQ; heterosexual marriage undertaken by Chinese queer people). It is unclear what these social norms entail and how the norms are maintained. This paper examines 89 Chinese newspaper articles to uncover the societal discourses driving families to pressure queer people into heterosexual marriage. We identified three framings: (1) Highlighting problems of formality marriage (the marriage between two queer people) and gay's wife marriage (the marriage between a queer man and a heterosexual woman); (2) portraying people involved in formality marriage and gay's wife marriage as suffering from heteronormative pressure to engage in marriage; and (3) presenting formality marriage in a collaboration frame and gay's wife marriage in a deception frame. These framings suggest heteronormativity in marriage is upheld in societal discourses about HMQ and sustained by two hierarchies created in Chinese newspaper articles: one degrading queer marriage practices, which made heterosexual marriage undertaken by queer people inferior to ideal heterosexual marriage; another stratifying queer marriage practices, which made the marriage between a queer man and a heterosexual woman less acceptable than the marriage between two queer people.
RESUMEN
In recent years, trans medicine has increasingly shifted towards gender-affirming care, focusing on assisting transgender people in finding safe and effective ways to support their gender identity. Through standards of care, clinical guidelines, and classification systems, international experts have established global norms with profound downstream implications. However, how local providers respond to these new norms remains underexplored. Drawing on ethnographic work in clinical settings, conferences, and 30 in-depth interviews with healthcare providers, I argue that family-centered gender-affirming care has emerged in China as providers strive to balance global ideals of "good" trans medicine with the constraints of the local healthcare system. While international standards assist providers in adopting a less pathologizing and binary view of care, they provide limited practical guidance for navigating local social and institutional challenges. Faced with a lack of legal and institutional support, providers increasingly rely on family members' involvement to mitigate medical dispute risks. This reliance manifests in two forms: restrictive gatekeeping, where care is delayed or denied based on family members' attitudes and providers' assessment of transgender adults' ability to lead a "normal life," and affective gatekeeping, where providers use psychological support and gender diversity education to involve family members as caregivers. These findings enrich sociological studies in global health by illustrating how the interactions between global norms and local healthcare systems can both alleviate and reproduce barriers to care.
