tonglian definition
tonglian ai” in 1920, “Tong” literally means “same” or “homo” and “lian’ai” indicates “love.” However, the term subsequently became “tongxinglian” with “Xing” referring to “sex” and “lian” referring to “love.” Despite the fact that same-sex activities can be commonly found in ancient Chinese society, same-sex attraction was never a noun used for describing one’s identity in ancient China. In other words, there was no term to describe same-sex sexual orientation in China until the term “homosexuality” came from the West to China in the early 20th century. However, compared to heterosexual/heterosexuality which has been always positioned as the “normal” sexuality in society, the terms “homosexuality” or “homosexual” have increasingly become redundant in the West as the word is very medical and pathological, and carries problematic meanings which are much outdated (Peters, 2014). It is still commonly used by the media in China even though Chinese gay and lesbian people do not like using the adjective term “homosexual” (in Chinese: tong xing lian) to refer to themselves (Wu, 2003). Instead, Chinese gay and lesbian people are more likely to use “gay1”, “lala/les2”