Sideways Developments: Queer and Trans Aesthetics of Global Hong Kong

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Sideways Developments: Queer and Trans Aesthetics of Global Hong Kong

by Kai Hang Cheang

University of Michigan Press, 2026

ISBNs

Cloth: 978-0-472-07812-7

Paper: 978-0-472-05812-9

eISBN: 978-0-472-90591-1 (OA)

About the Book

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.

About the Author

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

Reviews

"Sideways Developments innovatively employs queer theory, cultural studies, and legal analysis to offer a nuanced understanding of Hong Kong’s socio-political landscape. Kai Hang Cheang not only contextualizes legal advancements in Hong Kong but also connects them to broader discussions about queer rights, making it a valuable contribution to LGBTQ+ scholarship."— John Erni, The Education University of Hong Kong

“Sideways Developments is a deeply researched and theoretically adventurous study of queer and trans cultural productions in contemporary Hong Kong. Replete with local details while ambitiously global in approach, the book contributes indelibly to our understanding not only of postcolonial Hong Kong culture but, more vitally, what it means to think ‘sideways’ and to create from the margins.”

— Helen Leung, Simon Fraser University

"Sideways Developments is a rare project that delves deeply into both contemporary Sinophone and Anglophone Hong Kong literature and visual culture, both within and outside the city. It contributes to the emerging global Hong Kong and Hong Kong diaspora studies. The global intersectional approach on Hong Kong is an innovative framework and position that serves as a timely response to the changing political and cultural landscapes of post–2014 Hong Kong, which has become increasingly under the influence of international politics."— Lucetta Kam, Hong Kong Baptist University

“Kai Hang Cheang brings our attention to Hong Kong, a complex site of global finance, British colonialism, and Chinese capital, along with the protests that question each. Amidst this center of capitalist development, a vibrant queer and trans culture exists. Sideways Developments studies the dynamic overlap of sideways queer and trans life amidst development, offering an exciting example of the best of what queer critique offers when bringing together the economic with the aesthetic.”

— Hentyle Yapp, University of California, San Diego