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<p>Drawing on semi-structured interview data, this article examines how gay academics in China negotiate academic workplaces suffused with institutional heteronormativity and restrictive gender norms. It highlights gay academics’ accounts of leadership and institutional practices, revealing how heteronormativity and hegemonic masculinity are institutionalised within higher education institutions. This study finds that Chinese higher education institutions sustain and reinforce sexual and gender norms in three ways: (1) by promoting and privileging heterosexual marriage, (2) by censoring queerness, and (3) by stigmatising and punishing non-normative masculinities. Within these repressive workplace settings, gay academics describe a scene of powerlessness where avenues for resistance appear to be slim. Nonetheless, gay academics identify small moments where rigid workplace norms may be countered, locating forms of ‘soft’ resistance possible within their conditions of account. By taking seriously these soft forms of agency, this article contributes to queer debates that push on the limits of recognisability of queer resistance itself.</p>

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Institutional Heteronormativity, Hegemonic Masculinity, and Soft Resistance: Gay Academics’ Experiences in Chinese Academia

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

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  • 发表日期：

    2025年5月13日

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  • Le Cui,
  • James Burford

摘要

Drawing on semi-structured interview data, this article examines how gay academics in China negotiate academic workplaces suffused with institutional heteronormativity and restrictive gender norms. It highlights gay academics’ accounts of leadership and institutional practices, revealing how heteronormativity and hegemonic masculinity are institutionalised within higher education institutions. This study finds that Chinese higher education institutions sustain and reinforce sexual and gender norms in three ways: (1) by promoting and privileging heterosexual marriage, (2) by censoring queerness, and (3) by stigmatising and punishing non-normative masculinities. Within these repressive workplace settings, gay academics describe a scene of powerlessness where avenues for resistance appear to be slim. Nonetheless, gay academics identify small moments where rigid workplace norms may be countered, locating forms of ‘soft’ resistance possible within their conditions of account. By taking seriously these soft forms of agency, this article contributes to queer debates that push on the limits of recognisability of queer resistance itself.