Gay parents wish some in Hong Kong wouldn’t rush to judgment about them and their children
Same-sex parents talk about the pressures they face bringing up their children in a conservative society which focuses on their sexuality rather than the happy families they have created, and see city’s hosting of Gay Games as a positive
My job comes with the privilege of being able to disguise a curiosity about people whose lives are different from mine with questions; journalism endorses my nosiness. But the real privilege is delivered in the answers people offer: the insight they lend on communities and circumstances about which my experience is limited.
And the announcement that the Gay Games are to be hosted in Hong Kong in 2022 lends a perfect opportunity to ask questions, to be educated, informed, and to ditch preconceptions.
How gay Chinese hide their relationships behind ‘sham marriages’
Laura Simonsen, a Hong Kong photographer who recently held an exhibition to celebrate same-sex couples living in the city, says: “I don’t mind at all if people ask questions. I prefer it. As long as it doesn’t come with judgment.”
And the main questions she and her partner encounter are “who is the breadwinner” (what happened to sexual equality?) or “who is the mum?” which, she observes, is absurd.
“Society is conditioned to believe the man goes to work and the woman stays at home, and that there needs to be a gender divide in family roles. The answer we give is that we both work and we are both mums.”
Bess Hepworth, an activist who manages NGO Planet Ally and the Asia Pacific Rainbow Family Forum, lives in Hong Kong with her wife of 11 years, Kirsty Smith, and their two boys, five and three. She makes a valuable, emotive, point: family creation among the gay community often comes with more angst and consideration than in a heterosexual scenario.
