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Article published In:
Pragmatics
Vol. 18:2 (2008) ► pp.277–301

The trouble with tongzhi

The politics of labeling among gay and lesbian Hongkongers

A general address term in Communist China, tongzhi ‘comrade’ was appropriated by gay rights activists in Hong Kong to refer to members of sexual minorities. Examining its level of acceptance among non-activist gay and lesbian Hongkongers, this article argues that non-activists’ ideology about sexuality accounts for their rejection of tongzhi and their preference for strategies that leave same-sex desire unspecified. This study demonstrates how the discursive history of a label can both enable and impede its political efficacy. It also sheds light on the internal resistance that representatives of minority groups encounter when introducing new labels for those they supposedly speak for.

Keywords: Naming, Language and sexuality, Social category labels, Semantic change, Hong Kong
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.
Published online: 1 June 2008
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.18.2.05won
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Pak, Vincent
2021. Coming out ‘softly’. Gender and Language 15:3 DOI logo
Wong, Andrew D.
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