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Problematizing the “Coming out in Hong Kong” theory?

            As indicated in the data, being an immigrant lesbian in Hong Kong raises various very curious questions. We began with the question of why ‘coming out’ in Hong Kong, and as Sim & Constable have pointed out that they being away from home and with less supervision does to a large extent destabilizes their bodies in a way that opens them up to explore their own bodies and desires. But this view could be problematic as it leaves the helpers with no agency who are just succumbing to some forces of migration and social institutions like family. Even our own findings and the findings of those non-scholars do indicate a higher degree of agency and even coming out as just a way of life and not really much to do with sexuality.

 

         In some way, it further raises a question of whether lesbianism could be discussed independent of sexuality and perhaps more of just one style like clothing. But this also could be problematic as it could create room to delegitimize or exclude migrant lesbians from mainstream discourses. So the ‘coming out in Hong Kong’ theory might in the end be contributing to the further pushing away of migrant lgbt communities as not legitimate sexual minorities, and this again was shown by them having to organize a separate and rather lonely parade which was not taken seriously by the mainstream media and neither did the ‘champions’ of sexual minorities felt it was worth joining the migrant parade march which we joined as part of our field work.

 

Do they reproduce the heteronormative gender roles?

      Our data again shows that the two main interviewees we had, had themselves came out way before thinking of migration. They might be an anomaly, but this just does not only challenge Sim and Constable on the matter of having come out in Hong Kong but it also raises some doubts into one huge claim both of them echoed each other: the claim that such lesbian couples reproduces the traditional patriarchal structures in many ways or reproduces the heteronormative dichotomy where there is one masculine and one feminine partner. Our interviews were a couple and they were both masculine and even won the tomboy beauty pageant competition on the 3rd Sunday of conducting our field work.

 

Online social media as a new place helper’s sexuality isn’t threatening?

     Constable argues that the helpers’ femininity poses as a threat to their female employers; a threat the employer’s roles as a wife. In an effort to control this threat, the employers command a change of outfit in hoping to desexualizes the helpers’ bodies. In doing so, a rather different kind of body comes up and this is more masculine. This masculine body is not only ambiguous when viewed by Hong Kong society but also it tend to align more with the males which are viewed as powerful in Hong Kong tradition. And that further increases the threat: threat to almost all social structures: threat to the family structure as manifested by the employers responding by attempting to desexualize them, threat to socio-economic structures by their rather fluid socio-economic status, the helpers tend to be heroes of a rather higher social class in their own homes but here in Hong Kong they may be seen as second class citizens.  This mobility within statuses is a threat to the social structures, etc.

 

       If they are threat in all these traditional spaces and domains, where then do they find solace? We argued above that they do this online. The internet is playing a role as a space where they can ‘express’ themselves. Their femininity isn’t seen a threat and their ambiguous bodies fit with many other ambiguous bodies all across the world. It sounded so smart that this indeed was the phenomenon, but it looked smart until we further explored and reflected on both our data and the difficulties we experienced in accessing their online selves. So what now do we believe? We argue that our difficulty in conducting the online ethnography was not because we were dumb or we didn’t try hard enough, but rather it was an indication of something huge and that huge thing challenges our initial presupposition that the cyberspace is their safe haven to express their sexuality.

 

      As indicated in the data above, for those who actually participated of social media, their social media was highly secretive, it was almost impossible to be allowed to enter on their shared platforms. Our difficulty in accessing these platforms were not also because they didn’t exist, but they did exist but were meant to be safe places. Lesbian helpers do not add their employers on Facebook even if the sneaky employers send a friend request. The reason is simple; it is because the helpers consciously or unconsciously do not want to be a threat to the Hong Kong society anymore. If the employers were to see their Facebook full of sexy photos, it would add friction to the helper’s job and even threaten the possibility of losing that job.

 

      Helpers come out from home is very ‘conservative’ dress code and when they get into Victoria park they wear outfits which either exaggerate their femininity or masculinity. They take as many pictures and these on their secret online selves. So is the online space safe? Are the lesbian helpers hidden or passive? These are curious questions and we argued that either phenomenon are present but we think the helpers’ online selves are hidden more than passive and the reason these are hidden is to not want to cause threat to the Hong Kong society which could raise some rather new moral panics with the society and if these moral panics rise they could threaten the helpers jobs. So staying hidden in this case would be a rather active, deliberate and strategic choice.

 

     Moreover, as expected we observed different ways of dressing which shed light into understanding sexuality and performativity. Having asked our participants promptly to take pictures while at home and comparing those images with their online selves, we saw that there were differences in how they present themselves: more ‘conservative’ hiding their sexuality at home while their online images indicate exaggerated sexuality.

 

In the end, it appears limited understanding of these sexual minorities could end up being problematic in one way or the other, and yet it is so hard to get a fuller view of the phenomenon as much of their world is protected by them as a response to having been seen as threats which needed to be controlled and disciplined. Yet despite our study being limited in many ways as highlighted above e.g not having full access to their online presence, we still feel we have gained and learned a lot from interacting with them and some of us even went into the field with prejudices which were vigorously challenged and paved a path in our minds to better understand sexual minorities in different light.

CONCLUSION
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