Research Projects

My research interests are medical sociology, gender studies, social studies of reproduction, and LGBTQ+ studies. I am particularly intrigued by the entanglements of medical technologies and social norms. I am also attentive to LGBTQ+ people’s rights in Taiwan and beyond, with a specific focus on their exclusion from means of reproduction from the queer reproductive justice approach.

Here are the research puzzles that I have been working on: How do assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) intervene and influence the ways in which individuals and society understand relatedness-making, identity politics, and care? In what ways and to what extent does the bio-medicalisation of reproduction and the expansion of transnational third-party reproduction (re)present and (re)produce both existing and emerging forms of inequalities, gender norms, and hetero-/homo-normativity?

1. LGBTQ+ people’s accessibility to assisted reproductive technologies

My PhD thesis explores how gay men in Taiwan who seek transnational third-party reproduction describe, understand, and reflect on their experiences of attempting to become fathers with a view both to understanding the place of these narratives within the changing context of LGBTQ+ family-making in Taiwan and globally. By engaging with the sociology of reproduction and queer theory, I show how their reproductive trajectories can be interpreted to reveal the importance of crafting ‘queer relatedness’ in biomedicalised reproduction. At the same time, these narratives also reveal an ongoing sensitivity to, and deference toward, the dominant logics of cis-hetero and patriarchal family structures of contemporary Taiwan society.

I developed the concept of the ‘repropath’ to make sense of gay men’s reproduction and family-building, which is intended to help capture the making of relatedness both in alignment with and resistance against normativities. My findings confirm that gay men in Taiwan establish diverse repropaths to destabilise hetero-norms by redefining kin ties and rescripting family-building. Their repropaths are not homogenous but intersect with varied imaginaries of family formation, which in turn are reflected in practical choices regarding selecting sperm providers, donor ova and embryos. 

I suggest that normative and queer strategies can be used in tandem to achieve specific ends, including crafting ‘queer relatedness’ through re-articulating genetic ties, racial contours, and expected gender. On the one hand, these carefully chosen repropaths confirm the persistent significance of aligning ‘queer relatedness’ with existing norms, including the conventional understanding of biogenetic connections, racial hierarchies, and gender roles. On the other hand, they also challenge and undermine these norms by deploying malleable strategies and devising alternative discourses to justify their choices. In conclusion, I argue that gay fathers partly transgress heteropatriarchal constraints by ‘queering’ reproductive practices while they also partly seek recognition by employing flexible ‘resistant accommodation’ to negotiate with hetero-/homo-normativity. Gay men proactively build repropaths to contest normality, and their dynamic ‘dual strategies’ of normalisation and differentiation show that they consciously and constantly mediate between fitting into society and inventing alternative ways of crafting ‘queer relatedness’.

2. Stratification and gender politics in transnational third-party reproduction

In a similar vein, my ongoing research project keeps delving into Taiwanese gay men’s diverse ‘repropaths’ and explores what implications and consequences emerge from their reproductive practices. First, I look at gay men’s stratified experiences of accessing ARTs and surrogacy in different reproductive destinations, with a particular focus on those ‘in the legal limbo’ locations, including Russia, Thailand, and South American countries, in order to unpack the potential stigmas that they might encounter. Second, I am interested in how intimacy and marital status play a role in gay men’s reproductive trajectories and decision-making. Third, I traced my informants who had experiences of seeking cross-border reproduction during COVID-19 in order to understand how national border controls and pandemics cause impacts on their reproductive plans. Bringing these subthemes together, I attempt to delineate selective repropaths that are not considered ‘normative’ among the gay father community and to analyse the ways in which these gay fathers develop strategies in the face of misunderstandings and stigmatisation of their peculiar choices. 

This research will contribute to our understanding of complex stratified reproduction among gay men from two perspectives. Firstly, gay men’s disparate accessibilities to cross-border reproductive care (CBRC) and the ways in which they manage their ‘capitals of reproduction’ to strategically make reproductive plans accordingly can bring insight to the less seen and voiced ‘alternative repropaths’. Secondly, their decision-making is relevant to and intertwined with the potential stigmas they receive from the gay father community and society, as well as the moral discourse they make around surrogacy. The prospective contribution of this research project is to elaborate on how the ‘moral spectrum’ of surrogacy has been shaped in gay men’s reproductive practices and how disparities of ‘capitals of reproduction’ motivate gay men towards differentiated reproductive paths and generate the definition of ‘ethical surrogacy’ sequentially. I propose that the ‘moral spectrum’ of surrogacy is flexible and contextualised in the global-local, sociocultural fibres shaped by reproductive subjects with disparate levels of capital and support as well as different decision-making. 

3. Transnational Tongzhi couples’ cross-strait intimacy, reproductive imaginaries, and family building in Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, and Macao

Taiwan became the first country in Asia to legalise same-sex marriage in 2019, followed by the legal recognition for transnational couples in January 2023 and Taiwan-China couples in 2024. However, the current legal framework puts these transnational couples in a difficult situation where cohabitation in Taiwan is merely possible, particularly for Cross-Strait Tongzhi couples—those whose partners come from China, Hong Kong, and Macao.

Setting in the backdrop of lacking habitation security and reproductive rights, I attend to the ways in which Cross-Strait Tongzhi couples creatively imagine, strategically navigate, and practically plan their family-building future in terms of their intimate relationships, location of (co)habitation, and reproductive projects. I attempt to examine how political climates and sociolegal constraints both limit and enable their cross-border mobilities to seek and plan their future ‘together’ by varied paths, including sustaining long-distance relationships, migrating to a third country, or ‘alternative’ ways of understanding and practising ‘togetherness’ as a family. I propose the concept of ‘reproductive imaginary’ to examine how individuals’ reproductive ‘thinkability’ and ‘practices’ are embedded and structured in wider geopolitics in order to give a nuanced understanding of how these Tongzhi couples enact their agency and mobilities to build families.

4. Transnational and local egg donation among Taiwanese young women: Health risks, financial incentives, and moral narratives

For a growing number of young Taiwanese women, egg donation, both within Taiwan and across borders, has become a notable option. This practice is defined by a central tension between significant financial incentives and poorly disclosed health risks. Taiwan’s legal framework exemplifies this: while the commercial sale of oocytes is prohibited, the law sanctions a fixed ‘compensation’ of NT99,000 (approx.£2,500/US3,000), a sum that positions the act far beyond altruism compared to the sum in the UK (GBP 985/USD 1,280), for example. These donors, whose biocapital, namely high-quality eggs, is highly sought by the blooming global fertility industry, are often in positions of economic precarity. Critically, they are seldom provided with adequate information regarding the serious health risks of ovarian stimulation (OHSS) and surgical retrieval, creating a stark ethical dilemma between bodily value and bodily harm.

Against this backdrop, my research investigates the moral narratives that donors, clinics, and transnational brokers construct to make sense of this exchange. Drawing on an extensive analysis of online forums and industry websites, I examine how these actors navigate the complex terrain between commerce and care. I argue that the seemingly contradictory logics of altruism and financial gain are not mutually exclusive but are strategically entangled. This process of (de)commodification sees altruistic rhetoric, such as ‘spreading love’, imbue the financial transaction with profound moral and emotional significance. This, in turn, mitigates potential stigma and reframes what is effectively reproductive labour as a laudable gift out of altruism. I aim to offer a nuanced understanding of how donors enact their agency within the fertility market via proactively crafting moral discourses adhering to both their moral values, social expectations, and the capitalistic logics.