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Not your “Emerald Girl” 
In Defense of Tongqi Victimization Discourse 

Jiahui Vivian Zhu, Stanford University ’23 
 
 
 
 

Abstract: In studying queerness and queer relationships, gender and sexuality scholars have long 
attempted to expand the definition of kinship beyond the heteronormative, nuclear family 
centered mold. Some of these attempts have focused on the “queering” of intimate relationships, 
which often involves celebrating opaqueness and rejecting normative definitions of “legitimate” 
intimacy. This approach stands in stark contrast to mainstream and feminist discourses in 
contemporary mainland China which universally criticize the practice of “marriage fraud” – gay 
men marrying unsuspecting heterosexual women (tongqi). By analyzing a romanticized example 
of opaque kinship depicted by author Yiyun Li in her short story Gold Boy, Emerald Girl, this 
paper problematizes the ideal vision of “queer kinship” presented by scholars and defends the 
victimization narrative advanced by millions of Chinese tongqi. 
 
  
  



 

  

In her essay on Yiyun Li’s short story Gold Boy, Emerald Girl, critic King-Kok Cheung 
describes the union of Li’s protagonists as a “somewhat queer” and “unconventional love 
triangle” (Cheung, 2015, p. 88). This description is indeed fitting for a story about Siyu, a recluse 
in her late thirties, who agrees to marry Hanfeng, a man returning to Beijing after decades in 
North America, because of her attraction to his mother, her college mentor Professor Dai. Since 
Hanfeng is also implied to be gay, the relationship(s) at the center of this story can be mapped 
onto the concept of queer kinship, a term used to describe social connections constructed by and 
between queer individuals that transgress the bounds of traditional kinship. Indeed, the field of 
queer studies has long attempted to broaden the definition of kinship to more than just the “lived 
relationality” that emanates from “the heterosexual couple and the parent-child unit" (Freeman, 
2007, p. 295). In appropriating and transforming kinship terminologies, queer people can 
emphasize “freedom, creativity, and flexibility” in the formation and definition of their 
relationships (Freeman, 2007, p. 304).  

In stark contrast to the terms of empowerment employed by queer kinship theories, 
popular opinion in contemporary mainland China would likely disapprove of the marriage 
between Siyu and Hanfeng. Since same sex marriage is not legal in mainland China (Marriage 
Law of the People’s Republic of China, 2001), homosexual individuals, especially gay men who 
face pressures to continue the patriline often choose to marry unsuspecting straight women (Liu 
& Tang, 2014a, p. 131). Gay men who engage in this practice are widely judged as immoral for 
their instrumentalization of their wives to “deflect social and family obligation pressures” 
(Tsang, 2020, p. 794). Contrastingly, heterosexual women who enter these marriages have come 
to receive widespread sympathy. These women, known as “tongqi” (同妻 – the wife of a 
homosexual), are considered victims of “marriage fraud,” and are “commonly described as 
‘damaged’ or ‘spoiled’ goods” (Tsang, 2021, p. 794). In recent years, these women have 
publicized their predicaments through various media, organized in offline and online 
communities, and have constructed a collective identity around their victimhood (Zhu, 2018).  

Unlike the Chinese public, who is almost uniformly critical of the gay husbands in 
different-sex marriages, some scholars have argued that the discourse of tongqi victimhood is 
essentializing and ultimately homophobic. In her article published in Sexualities, Jingshu Zhu, a 
lawyer turned researcher of LGBT+ issues in China at Leiden University, argues that rather than 
stigmatizing gay men who enter different-sex marriages, one should consider such marriages as a 
form of queer kinship that “put(s) the concept of kinship into question” (Zhu, 2018, p. 1086). In 
particular, Zhu addresses two societal expectations underlying the tongqi victimhood narrative: 
first, that marriage “should ideally provide hetero-romantic-sexual love and a stable family life”; 
and second, that “only heterosexuals should be entering different-sex marriages” (Zhu, 2018, p. 
1077). The problem with these expectations, Zhu argues, is that they leave gay men with no 
realistic option. For the vast majority of gay men, coming out is forbidden by societal 
homophobia, yet they are also unable to fulfill their socially expected duties as a heterosexual 
husband. To resolve this dilemma, Zhu advocates the deconstruction of the “problematic truth 
regime” that prohibits mixed-orientation marriages on the grounds of morality (Zhu, 108, p. 
1085). Instead, she proposes “opacity as a queer tactic in marriage,” and an expansion in the 
definition of kinship to include mixed-orientation relationships, which may still offer “care, 
support and companionship” despite a partner’s undisclosed sexuality (Zhu, 2018, p. 1087).  

This essay will challenge Zhu’s solution to the aforementioned dilemma, arguing that in 
advocating opacity she obscures the very real suffering of many tongqi. Furthermore, this essay 
will rationalize the primary demands of tongqi – fewer gay-straight marriages and more “coming 



 

  

out” (Zhu, 2018, p. 1085), as an alternative solution to the moral dilemma facing gay men. The 
marriage in Gold Boy, Emerald Girl, one that seemingly fits Zhu’s definition of a mutually-
beneficial, “opaque” relationship, will be used to frame the plight of real-life tongqi. By 
contrasting Li’s story, which describes a positive mixed-orientation marriage, and the negative 
experiences of many real tongqi, the following sections will argue that these differences are 
precisely why Hanfeng’s marriage can be characterized as non-exploitative “queer kinship,” 
while other gay men may reasonably be accused of committing “fraud.” 

 
“Marriage Fraud” as a Broken Promise 

The first major difference between Siyu and most tongqi is her lack of expectations when 
it comes to what Zhu terms the “ideal package of marriage-love-sex” (Zhu, 2018, p. 1077). In her 
own vision of her post-marriage life, Siyu pictures not the usual images of conjugal romance, but 
herself “standing by the window and listening to Hanfeng and Professor Dai play four-hand” at 
the piano (Li, 2010, p. 221). In fact, not only does Siyu have no expectations for Hanfeng, for 
whom she likely harbors no romantic or sexual feelings, she does not even expect reciprocation 
from Professor Dai, for whom she had “remained unmarried” for more than a decade (Li, 2010, 
p. 220). Indeed, the younger woman’s expressions of love are extremely subtle, almost 
undetectable – in college she arrived early each day at the biology building only to receive an 
imperceptible nod from the professor, and since graduation she “tried to keep herself 
uncommitted” every New Year’s Eve in case the older woman required her companionship (Li, 
2010, p. 204).  

Unlike Siyu, most women expect more from their marriages than just living with the 
object of their desires and occasionally listening to them play piano. When asked by researchers 
about their husbands’ sexual and emotional unavailability, tongqi used phrases like “pain,” 
“irritation,” and “trauma,” in describing their disappointment (Wang & Li, 2015). In her article, 
Zhu takes issue with blaming such feelings on “marriage fraud,” observing that “many wives 
with heterosexual husbands…are enduring similarly indifferent or even tormented marriages, but 
none of them have collectively formed an identity based around victimhood” (Zhu, 2018, p. 
1080). Instead, Zhu attributes these feelings of victimization to “the unmarked expectation…that 
both spouses should be straight” in a different-sex marriage, an expectation that unfairly 
classifies all gay men’s “straight” marriages as inherently fraudulent (Zhu, 2018, p. 1080). There 
are two potential counterarguments to Zhu’s assertion.  

Firstly, even if it is unhelpful or unreasonable for women to expect romance and sexual 
fulfillment from their marriages, the psychological harm suffered due to these unfulfilled 
expectations cannot be negated. In addition to unfulfilled sexual desires and emotional 
unavailability, women often also feel traumatized when they discover that their husbands have 
been seeking sexual and emotional fulfillment with other men. Scholars who have conducted 
extensive ethnographic work on tongqi groups report that many women question their own 
attractiveness and actions within their relationships, which often results in depression and shame 
(Liu, 2017). In extreme cases, these negative emotions, along with the failure to come to terms 
with one’s spouse’s infidelity, may lead to self-harm. According to a systematic review by Wang 
et al. (2020), multiple surveys have shown that a majority of tongqi experienced depressive 
symptoms including suicide ideation, and over 10% of them have had suicide attempts (p. 4). 
One high profile example of such a tragedy was the suicide of Luo Hongling. After documenting 
her life as a tongqi online and revealing that her husband interacted “sexually and romantically 



 

  

with multiple men through social media channels,” the Sichuan University lecturer took her own 
life in 2012 (Ying, 2018).  

Secondly, Zhu misattributes the “pian” (骗 – deceive, fraud) accusation in “marriage 
fraud” to women feeling cheated solely because of their husbands’ sexuality, thereby suggesting 
that those hurt feelings are intertwined with homophobic attitudes (Zhu, 2018). She further 
argues that hiding one’s sexuality cannot be unequivocally construed as fraud, since “the 
withholding of information (an inaction) is not widely considered fraud (an action)” (Zhu, 2018, 
p. 1077). In the context of the Chinese Marriage Law, however, definitions of “marriage fraud” 
include “the withholding of truthful information” in order to convince another party to agree to 
marry (Liu & Tang, 2014a, p.133). Although in practice Chinese divorce courts only allow 
accusations of “marriage fraud” in cases where the fraud is committed for financial gain, legal 
scholars have argued that tongqi should be able to use this definition as well (Wang, 2015). 
Moreover, many gay men enter into marriages with women after coming out to their families, 
contrary to Zhu’s characterization of widespread confusion about their sexuality (Zhu, 2018, p. 
1085). In a study conducted by Liu and Tang (2014a), many of the gay men interviewed revealed 
that they had decided to marry after their families reacted negatively to their coming out. One 
tongqi interviewee even revealed that when she confronted her mother-in-law about her 
husband’s sexuality, she was told that his whole family knew all along and that it was her fault 
for not “fixing him” (Liu and Tang, 2014a, p. 131). Another survey conducted by Zhang et al. 
(2014) revealed that 86.3% of the tongqi subjects would “definitely not have gotten married” to 
their current husbands had they known their true sexuality. Combining these findings, it is clear 
that the hiding of their sexualities, often with the help of their families, is a necessary condition 
of many gay men’s heterosexual marriages. Withholding information with the explicit intent to 
convince another party to enter an agreement, knowing full well that the information is crucial to 
their decision, can definitely be reasonably described as “fraud.” 

In sum, although Zhu may reasonably argue that it is wrong for heterosexual women to 
expect their husbands to be straight, and that sexuality should not be crucial to a woman’s 
decision about marriage, her arguments cannot negate the trauma suffered by many tongqi within 
their marriages and upon discovering the intentional deceit by her husband and in-laws.  

 
The Inescapability of Unhappy Marriages  

Another predicament faced by most women in China, including tongqi, but virtually 
absent in the case of Siyu, is the ubiquitous pressure to get married, and, more importantly, stay 
married. When Siyu finally meets Hanfeng at the age of thirty-eight, she has already “developed 
a reputation as unmatchable” (Li, 2010, p. 206). Although she too once experienced “neighbors 
and acquaintances” eagerly trying to “find a husband for her,” this stage of her life is decidedly 
behind her (Li, 2010, p. 206). Additionally, Siyu faces little pressure to get married from her 
natal family – her mother has long since passed away, and she has come to maintain “a respectful 
distance” from her father’s family upon his remarriage (Li, 2010, p. 204). Furthermore, Siyu is 
described as having “not changed much” from her days in college, where she was quirky and 
relatively friendless (Li, 2010, p. 206). Indeed, her current job as a librarian probably also does 
not bring with it a gaggle of nosy coworkers interested in her private life. 

Resultingly, Siyu’s life is far removed from the experiences of most tongqi, since she 
could independently decide to marry Hanfeng at age thirty-eight, and would face minimal social 
pressure if she were to choose divorce in the future. For most tongqi, however, pressures by their 
families and society to marry in their twenties are immense (Murti, 2019, pp. 41-42), and upon 



 

  

discovering their husbands’ sexuality, most are forced to stay in the marriage by both legal 
barriers and the fear of social consequences (Wang et al., 2020, p. 4). Remembering how she met 
her ex-husband, one tongqi interviewee told researchers that she got married after being 
“pressured by her parents to attend countless blind dates after graduate school” (Wang & Li, 
2015). This particular woman divorced her husband after an instance of domestic violence, but 
many others stay in their unhappy marriages.  

In general, divorce is inaccessible for Chinese women due to the relative difficulty for 
women to be financially independent as a result of a gendered lack of economic opportunities 
(Liu, 2017). Moreover, divorce is still considered a “disgraceful act” in China, especially for 
women (Zhang et al., 2014, p. 102). Certainly, such shame and financial hardship is experienced 
by all women in China, not just tongqi, and scholars like Zhu may argue that the agony of tongqi 
“is an epitome of many interwoven socio-economic problems in contemporary China, rather than 
simply the result of a ‘gay’ secret” (Zhu, 2018, p. 1082). Yet this assertion cannot nullify the 
unique harms experienced by tongqi when it comes to being trapped in their marriages, for two 
reasons.  

First, there are additional barriers preventing tongqi from obtaining financial 
compensation during divorce settlements compared to women with husbands who commit 
(heterosexual) adultery. According to Zhou Dan, a lawyer specializing in gay rights cases, 
obtaining evidence to prove their aggrieved status is a near-impossible task for most tongqi. This 
is because under Chinese law, evidence of a spouse cohabitating with another individual can 
only serve as proof of infidelity when that individual is of the opposite sex (Ying, 2018).  

Second, women who divorce a gay husband may face more severe stigmatization 
compared to other divorcees. For example, while many tongqi subjects of a 2014 study wanted a 
divorce, most of them did not see it as a practical option. When asked to explain her reasoning, 
one woman replied, “I may be stigmatized for being a gay man’s wife, suspected of carrying that 
unspeakable disease…and be ridiculed by my family and friends” (Liu & Tang, 2014b, p. 35).  

In acknowledging the additional legal and social barriers faced by tongqi considering 
divorce, one can no longer simply equate the experiences of these women trapped by “marriage 
fraud” to other women who choose to stay in unhappy marriages due to socio-economic factors.   
 
The Curse of Motherhood 

The final aspect of Siyu’s character that distinguishes her from most tongqi is the 
unlikelihood of her ever having children with Hanfeng. Beyond the fact that Siyu is probably 
physically less able to become pregnant due to her age, her distance from her immediate family 
and apparent lack of married-with-children friends also reduces the pressure to choose 
motherhood. The demand for children is equally absent on Hanfeng’s side, since his father has 
also passed away, and Professor Dai makes no mention of any desire to become a grandmother.  

Most tongqi, on the other hand, do become mothers. In fact, tongqi “often discover their 
husbands’ secret after giving birth” (Tsang, 2021, p. 794), that is to say, after they have fulfilled 
the Confucian filial obligation of continuing the patriline, which remains important for most 
Chinese families (Eklund, 2018, p. 297). Of course, many women in unsatisfactory heterosexual 
marriages also become mothers, but motherhood also brings unique harms to tongqi. For 
example, many tongqi experience anxiety relating to their children’s development. One woman 
expressed fear about her son being exposed to “gay circles” (Wang & Li, 2015), others revealed 
anxieties surrounding bringing up children who are “ashamed of their fathers” (Liu & Tang, 



 

  

2014b, p. 35). Despite the fact that these anxieties may be derived from homophobic stereotypes 
about the promiscuity of gay men, the torment endured remains genuine and impactful.  

Beyond such anxieties, tongqi often struggle with feelings of alienation and 
instrumentalization. Compared to most Western countries, the pressure to have children is 
“extraordinarily pronounced in China” (Zhu, 2018, p. 1076). As a result, tongqi report feeling 
like “a tool for continuing the patriline” (Ying, 2018), and their anxieties are often validated 
when their husbands’ attitude towards them suddenly deteriorates after childbirth (Liu & Tang, 
2014b). Although the pressure to bear children is ubiquitous for most Chinese women, not just 
the wives of gay men, the revelation that their worth is no more than their uterus is particularly 
traumatizing for tongqi (Zhang et al., 2014, p. 101, 105). 

 
Conclusion 

Arguments like Zhu’s shine a much needed light on “the heteronormative prejudices 
behind the seemingly gender-neutral virtues of ‘spousal love’ and ‘communication’” (Zhu, 2018, 
p. 1085). Certainly, her problematization of some aspects of the discourse surrounding tongqi is 
also entirely reasonable – it is true that some older gay men chose to get married in an era in 
which the categorial “gay” identity was not yet accessible, and that essentializing gay men’s 
sexuality erases bisexual identities and “forecloses the possibility of sexual fluidity” (Zhu, 2018, 
p. 1085). Suggesting opacity as a solution to these problems, however, denies the lived realities 
of women who consider themselves the victims of “marriage fraud.” Indeed, Zhu herself, in 
assessing her interviews with one gay man, acknowledges that by listening to only his side of the 
story, his wife’s “emotional and sexual needs might be trivialized” (Zhu, 2018, p. 1084). Despite 
this, Zhu still seems to sympathize more with the plight of gay men, reasoning that once these 
men get married, they will be hurting their wives regardless of whether or not they are entirely 
truthful. Yet the logic of tongqi activism and their self-constructed narratives do not operate in a 
“should he tell the truth or not” dichotomy, but rather advocates for a world where gay men do 
not, and are not required to get married to women. In fact, many tongqi actually acknowledge the 
victimization of gay men by a homophobic society, while also judging it inappropriate to harm 
another marginalized group “just because of one’s own suffering” (Ying, 2018).  

At the end of her analysis of Gold Boy, Emerald Girl, Cheung (2015) suggests that the 
characters arrive at a state of “compromised domesticity,” reflecting a cultural ethos “that puts a 
great stock in interdependence, including filial obligation” (101). In Li’s story, this compromise 
appears willingly chosen by all parties, connecting three lonely people who together can “make a 
world that would accommodate their loneliness” (Li, 2010, p. 221). This is also a story in which 
none of the characters explicitly reveal their sexuality, a creative choice which fits both Li’s 
literary aesthetics of subtlety and ambiguity, and Zhu’s conceptualization of “opacity” as a 
means to “radically queer kinship (studies)” (Zhu, 2018, p. 1075). Nevertheless, this opacity is 
neither what many tongqi would accept nor the only solution to the double bind of a homophobic 
society and marriages that demand truthfulness. Certainly, there may be women like Siyu who 
are willing to be the “emerald girl” to Hanfeng’s “gold boy,” for whom achieving “genuinely 
inclusive and flourishing queer kinship” (Zhu, 2018, p. 1087) is possible or even desired. Yet 
perhaps it is also reasonable for tongqi to frame their experiences as one of victimization by their 
husbands, their families, and oppressive notions of gender relations, and to wish for a world in 
which the way out of the double bind does not involve their pain or the compromising of their 
desires. Perhaps in wishing for a world without “marriage fraud,” they are simply wishing for a 
world where the solution is less homophobia in the first place.  



 

  

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