Gay men are called nan tong xiang lian and their wives are tong qi, or gay man's wife.
"I feel sorry and embarrassed, but I didn't really have a choice about getting married," Kathy's husband tells Shanghai Daily.
As single child, like many of his peers under the one-child policy, he is expected to wed and sire a child. Kathy's husband, now in his early 30s, once told his parents that he didn't ever intend to marry - and he was severely criticized and threatened with loss of inheritance.
His father warned that he would jeopardize his career as a rising star in a state-owned enterprise if he remained single. Bosses and colleagues would think him eccentric, unstable and unfit for higher leadership without a happy family. His father also threatened to disown him.
"I couldn't reason with him, to say nothing about coming out to him, but he was right in some ways," says the man who naturally remains unidentified. "I was almost 30 then and many older women in the office were curious about my marriage status. They kept asking if I had a girlfriend and kept trying to set up blind dates for me."
This insistence on marriage and continuous bloodline is even stronger in rural areas and smaller cities where homosexuality is still believed to be a disease that can be cured. Divorce is unthinkable.
The tong qi are themselves just emerging from the shadows and getting considerable attention. They tell very sad stories and have drawn great sympathy.
Wu Youjian, the first Chinese mother to support her homosexual son on TV, has organized support groups and sharing meetings for these women.
Many more gay wives are too mortified to discuss their situation publicly and only share through a dozen online support groups, started over three years. Those who do venture online are cautious about giving too many details. Many wouldn't dream of going online.
The first book about these spouses, "A Survey on the Status of Gay Wives in China," was published last summer.
It revealed the difficult situations of many spouses of gay men, including no sex life, indifference and neglect by husbands.
In some cases, there's even violence inflicted by frustrated men who cannot cope with the pressure to hide their sexual orientation and take it out on their wives.
"As soon as I gave birth to my son, my husband stopped having sex with me," says Kathy, who runs a small PR company. "At first, I thought he was considerate about my well-being after giving birth and I figured he was tired because of financial pressure."
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