Scottish Centre for China Research

When: Wednesday 14 January 2026 at 4–5.30pm 

Where: 208 McIntyre Building, University of Glasgow (in person only). 

 

Abstract: 

This presentation examines how Chinese gay men reconfigure kinship, parenthood, and social belonging after becoming fathers through surrogacy. Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews with Chinese gay fathers, it focuses on the relational and moral work involved in raising children born via surrogacy in a context where same-sex relationships lack legal recognition and surrogacy remains legally ambiguous. The analysis foregrounds everyday family practices after children are born. It explores how fathers negotiate maternal absence, manage relationships with surrogates, redistribute intimacy within same-sex partnerships, and strategically involve grandparents while often remaining closeted. I argue that motherhood in these families is neither erased nor fully incorporated but carefully managed through what I conceptualise as symbolic motherhood and peripheral motherhood. Beyond the household, the presentation shows how fatherhood reshapes gay men’s engagement with gay communities, often producing selective withdrawal, the formation of new parenting-based networks, and a moral repositioning of the self as responsible, respectable, and socially legitimate. Taken together, these findings suggest that queer parenthood in China is less about resisting dominant norms than about working through them. The study contributes to sociological debates on queer kinship, stratified reproduction, and moral governance by highlighting how fatherhood becomes a key site through which sexuality, care, and social legitimacy are negotiated in contemporary China.

Short Bio: Congwei Zheng is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of Glasgow. His doctoral research examines the experiences of surrogacy arrangements and parenting among Chinese gay men. Drawing on qualitative interviews, his work engages with queer kinship, stratified reproduction, fatherhood studies, and reproductive governance, with particular attention to legal ambiguity, moral negotiation, and reproductive markets. Congwei was the President of British Postgraduate Network for Chinese Studies (BPCS) in 2024-2025. Before coming to Glasgow, Congwei obtained MA in Social Media and Social Research with Merit and BA in Radio and Television Editing and Directing.