Unlocking the Red Closet

An inside look at the lives of gay male and transgender sex workers in China

In Unlocking the Red Closet, Eileen Yuk-ha Tsang takes us to an upscale gay bar in the port city of Tianjin in Northeastern China, where the male staff have sex with regular clientele. She brings this world to life through interviews with over two-hundred people, including gay male sex workers and their wives, known as “Tongqi” (heterosexual women married to gay men), transgender sex workers, HIV patients, and the doctors who care for them.

Tsang argues that the violent oppression against the LGBTQ community in China has far-reaching consequences: the limitation of careers outside of the sex industry for gay men, because they do not adhere to traditional ideas of masculinity; the constant exposure to high-risk sexual practices and poor medical care due to stigma in the medical community; and the maintenance of the facade of heterosexual married life. Tsang denounces the homophobic culture and state-sanctioned oppression of the gay community, making a case that, in addition to the very real health risks many face in their profession, many of the gay male and trans sex workers also face social death should they try to lead lives that would embrace their gender and sexual identities.

Unlocking the Red Closet is a fascinating look into a rarely seen world that successfully locates the necropolitical within the queer and the queer within the necropolitical.