In a country of more than a billion people, in a culture bound by tradition and duty, what is life like for people who break society’s rules?

Open Closets answers this question by exploring the LGBT experience in Shanghai, China. Shot and written over a year, the book profiles a variety of people in and around Shanghai: social workers, sex workers, businessmen, drag queens. Chinese nationals and foreign expats. Gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered women. People living with HIV. Men who meet for a moment of pleasure, men who commit to each other for life, men who marry women and have men on the side, and gay men who marry lesbians.

The images and stories portray not just gay culture in Shanghai, but also a society undergoing rapid change as an emerging capitalist economy transforms social relationships.

With its combination of photographs and accessible writing, Open Closets is a groundbreaking contribution to literature about LGBT people in contemporary China.

"Unsettlingly powerful. The chapter about the older men in the park simply broke my heart." -- Christopher Chan

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