MeCCSA 2025: Identity and Belonging

In the 2025 MeCCSA Conference, I will be presenting my paper titled:

“The Chinese Daughter with a Westernized Life”: Navigating Queer Invisibility and Feminist Resistance Online

Abstract

This paper examines how Chinese queer women’s online practices intersect with queer representation and feminist resistance in digital spaces. In March 2023, the state media People’s Daily referred to the queer daughter from the Oscar-winning film Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) as a “daughter with a Westernized life,” marking a peak moment of censorship and state-driven de-Westernization narratives. In response, Chinese female netizens have developed coded language as a necessary survival tool to engage with queer and feminist discourses online. This paper argues that the strategic use of coded language and symbolic discourse has created a semi-protected digital space where queer fandom and feminist communities can emerge and grow. Through these strategies, online expressions of queerness and feminist activism evade censorship while fostering spectacular yet subversive modes of resistance.

Using digital ethnography and discursive analysis of selected Weibo hashtags and Douban forums focused on female queerness and feminist discourse, this study explores how Chinese queer women construct a self-sustaining feminist community. This digital network not only fosters a sense of belonging for queer and transnational feminist individuals under state surveillance and heterosexual hegemony but also serves as a space for voice-making and resistance. While digital platforms provide moments of belonging and representation, they simultaneously reinforce a precarious politics of visibility, where queer and feminist voices remain vulnerable to censorship and erasure. Ultimately, this paper contributes to the broader discourse on queer digital activism, online feminist resistance, and political communication in restrictive media environments.

Keywords

Queer women, political communication, feminist resistance, social media, China