Sideways Developments examines Hong Kong Anglophone and Cantophone literature and visual culture to trace the forms of queer and trans survival and flourishing in the Asian century. Contesting the cisgender, heterosexual, linear tropes that constitute developmentalist narratives deployed by superpowers—from colonial Britain to 20th-century America to a rising China—Cheang argues that sideways aesthetics define the narratives through which the LGBTQ+ community navigates personal and socioeconomic transitions. Through formalist analyses of a range of genres, Cheang reveals the affordances of queer and trans cultures for addressing the question of Hong Kong during its period of promised transition until 2047.

In this moment of multiple crises, Sideways Developments offers a timely hermeneutic and theory of solidarity and sustainability. The book tracks how sideways aesthetics have evolved from a feature of LGBTQ+ plots, performance, and nonlinear approaches to space-time to a form of togetherness that links postcolonial Hong Kong with struggles worldwide. Using what Cheang terms intersectional formalism as an analytical tool, the book provides a multilayered examination of the alternative pathways exemplified by queer and trans resilience and regeneration.

Kai Hang Cheang is Assistant Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Portland State University.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Ah Po and Ah Suen’s Brood
Chapter 1: The Queer Past and Present of Social Change in HK Cantophone Fiction: Gay and Lesbian Love Plots in a Time of Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics 
Chapter 2: Growing Sideways in Twenty-First Century Global Anglophone Hong Kong Fiction: Autonomous Youth in the Queer Diasporic Literary Imaginary 
Chapter 3: Periperformative Transition Narratives; Or, Reading Queer and Trans Poetics, Translations, and Politics in Global Anglophone Hong Kong Sideways
Chapter 4: Transgender Laws and Autobiographical Films in Hong Kong and its Diaspora
Chapter 5: Disintegrating Development: Neoliberal Critiques, Molecular Entanglements, and Speculative Trans Media at the Trans Tipping Point of Hong Kong
Coda: Braided Developments: Disability and Trans Justice in Hong Kong and Macau
Works Cited