Between queer sexualities and migrant heteronormative familialism: Chinese rural-to-urban male migrant workers surviving economic precarity and cultural norms

This paper examines how sexual nonconforming, rural-to-urban male migrant workers in mainland China navigate what I term “migrant heteronormative familialism,” a concept grounded in queer Marxist analysis that captures a distinct conceptualization of natal family relations and the ideology of the hetero-reproductive family. Their negotiations are shaped not only by sociocultural norms but also by material concerns specific to migrant workers that include insufficient access to social welfare, hukou restrictions, and transient migrant lives. These structural constraints reinforce their dependence on their natal families for care and affective investment in a hetero-reproductive future. Ultimately, the paper explores how workers navigate heterosexual familistic norms to access socioeconomic resources while sustaining non-normative sexual lives on the margins of rural-to-urban migrant communities.