[2] Gay Chinese men are under social pressure to marry and produce a male heir to continue the family line, as Confucian writers such as Mencius have placed a strong emphasis on this.
The word combines 同 tong from 同性戀 (tongxinglian 'homosexuality') or 同志 (tongzhi, a slang term for 'gay') with 妻 qi ('wife').
Even if tongqi find out about their husbands' sexuality and demand a divorce, their families often call their behavior and actions unreasonable, leading to additional problems with their senses of identity.
[10] After tongqi realize that their husbands are gay, there are many types of assimilation and accommodation practices that they have used to regain control of their lives and their senses of identity.
[5] Often, the goal of accommodation for these tongqi was to find better lives and empower themselves, but many also expected their husbands could simply change and become loving partners, showing the challenges that arise from a lack of education surrounding homosexuality.
[5] Within China, there is much stigma that surrounds the idea of being gay, meaning that many men do not want to come out for fear of facing political, social, and cultural discrimination.
Because the fear of becoming a leftover woman is so great and there is such a high emphasis on family values for Chinese women, many enter relationships and marriages very quickly in order to find a partner within a certain time frame.
[9] A new trend among Chinese gay men and lesbian is arrangements called cooperation marriages,[9] where they marry each other publicly while living with a same sex partner in private.
[12] Research has been conducted about the plight of tongqi by the Harbin Institute of Technology for the first time that encourages the acceptance of gays, to reduce the number of women subjected to these marriages.