Intersectional Activism and Sexual Citizenship in the HKSAR: Evans Chan’s Raise the Umbrellas (2016)

Abstract

In 1998, Jeffrey Weeks published an article entitled “The Sexual Citizen” in the journal Theory, Culture and Society. In it, he notes the importance of the conjuncture of the traditionally private realms of gender and sexuality, subjectivity, and erotic identity with the public rights of citizenship including access to public space, free assembly, equal accommodation, and, of course, full suffrage. During Hong Kong’s 2014 Umbrella Movement, a broad coalition of political groups and individuals banded together to occupy the territory’s streets to protest the Chinese Central Government’s interpretation of the HKSAR’s Basic Law. The issue that divided families and communities involved the question of universal suffrage and restrictions on the right to run and hold public office. Local and international media galvanized attention on the mass protests, and scholars have begun to analyze the movement from various perspectives. However, although LGBTQ and feminist organizations as well as individual women played significant roles in the demonstrations, a full accounting of the importance of these sexual citizens to Hong Kong’s political development has yet to be done. Understanding the ways in which gender and sexuality mark identity within the Hong Kong electorate provides a point of departure for a fuller appreciation of the role women and LGBTQ minorities play in social activism in the HKSAR. In 1989, Professor of Law Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw brought critical race theory into deeper engagement with gender and sexuality research through an essay for the University of Chicago Legal Forum entitled “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics.” Although specifically addressing the paucity of theoretical concepts designed to explore the severity of intersections of sexism and racism in America, the concept of “intersectionality” can also be employed in Hong Kong to shed light on the ways in which gender and sexual orientation intersect in the political arena. Films made after the 2014 protests that reflect on the movement and its impact provide a starting point for this analysis of intersectional activism within the Umbrella Movement. Evans Chan’s documentary Raise the Umbrellas stands out in this regard because it devotes considerable screen time to Anthony Wong and Denise Ho, two popular entertainers who openly advocate for gender and sexual equality, involved in the movement. Collaborating with female cinematographers, including Nate Chan and Nora Lam, who, individually made their own films about the demonstrations, Evans Chan highlights the importance of the rights of women and sexual minorities to the struggle for suffrage and self-determination in Hong Kong. This analysis of Raise the Umbrellas attempts to tease out the role intersectionality plays in defining sexual citizenship to better appreciate the importance of feminist and LGBTQ perspectives to the forging of democracy in Asia.