Phoebe and Sarah stand out from the other kids in Shenzhen's central park. Xiao Chen doesn't like answering questions: being a lesbian mother in a country where her children are seen as illegitimate is not something she likes to discuss with strangers.
Every day during the balmy late afternoons of southern China's spring, Xiao Chen takes her twin daughters to Shenzhen's central park.
They stand out from other Chinese kids in the park — they're Eurasian, prompting occasional questions from other parents about whether they have a Western father. It's a question Xiao Chen would rather not answer. As a lesbian mother of kids who are seen as illegitimate under Chinese law, it's not something she likes to discuss with strangers in the park.In China, non-married women face tight restrictions when accessing artificial reproductive procedures.
Complicating things further is that the twin's biological mother is not Xiao Chen, but her wife, Winky. Their anonymous sperm donor is from the US. They want to send Phoebe and Sarah to day care, but they haven't been able to obtain a"hukou" — household registration certificate — for the twins. The certificate, widely seen as outdated, determines a child's access to education, healthcare and social benefits.
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