No success no queer

Burnout queerness for queer female entrepreneurs in post-socialist urban China

Bibliographic Data

ID6442077
AuthorsTang Ling (0000-0002-6158-8034, The University of Melbourne, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume47
Issue7
Pages1486-1496
Publication date2025-07-08
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueMedia Culture & Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0163-4437 • E-ISSN: 1460-3675
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/01634437251350026
OpenAlexW4412368920
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited26

Based on 3 years of ethnographic research with urban elite businesswomen in China, this paper introduces the concept of “burnout queerness” to deepen the understanding of homonormativity under post-socialism. Burnout queerness highlights how homonormativity is highly contingent, shaped by an imagined standard of neoliberal success and monogamy. This framework positions certain T (masculine-presenting women) as preferable intimate partners over their male counterparts, who are often associated with infidelity due to the pressures of “entrepreneur masculinity”. Examining a form of fluid desire among individuals who move away from the politics of coming out, this homonormativity is both precarious and pragmatic. When neoliberal conditions are no longer met, or pragmatism breaks down, same-sex intimacy becomes unstable, with both partners potentially reverting to different-sex relationships

Burnout · China · Communism · Elite · Ethnography · Masculinity · Political science · Politics · Queer · Socialism · Sociology · Gender Roles and Identity Studies · Gender Studies · LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy · Psychology · Sex work and related issues

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