Sex and Gender

Masculinities

Sexualities

Religion

Globalization and Transnationalism

Education

• Ph.D., Sociology, Rutgers University—New Brunswick, 2018
• M.A., Sociology, Rutgers University—New Brunswick, 2014
• M.A., Sociology, National Taiwan University, 2006
• B.A., Sociology (major) and Philosophy (minor), National Taiwan University, 2003

Research Interests

• Sociologies of sex, gender, and sexualities
• Critical men and masculinities studies 
• Sociology of Religion
• Globalization and transnationalism
• Global LGBTQ+ politics
• Social movement studies
• Global Asias
• Queer Asias studies
• Taiwan in the world studies

Bios

Dr. Ying-Chao Kao is an Associate Professor of Sociology and an Affiliate Faculty member of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, United States. Receiving his PhD degree in Sociology from Rutgers University—New Brunswick, Kao’s research areas include critical sexualities and masculinities studies, religion, globalization and transnationalism, social movement studies, global LGBTQ politics, and Queer Asias studies. Kao’s English-language articles appear in the journals Sexualities, Contexts, International Journal of Taiwan Studies, and Taiwan Journal of Democracy, among others. His Sexualities article, “The Coloniality of Queer Theory: The Effects of ‘Homonormativity’ on Transnational Taiwan’s Path to Equality,” won an Outstanding Article Award from the Division of Gender, Sexual Behavior, Politics, and Communities at the Society for the Study of Social Problems in 2025. 

His book, Fear of Queer Taiwan: Anti-LGBTQ Movements between Taiwan and the U.S. Religious Right (NYU Press 2026), traces the rise and fall of anti-LGBTQ movements in Taiwan and analyzes their transnational connections with American conservatism. The book answers a theoretical puzzle: Why have anti-LGBTQ politics been rapidly growing in Taiwan—an Asian society where Christianity is a religious minority and its vibrant LGBTQ communities celebrated the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2019? 

The book reveals moral conservatives’ privilege gained through Taiwan’s authoritarian legacy and the benefits from their transnational interactions with American and European conservatism. Conceptually, Kao develops a theory called “liquid conservatism” to analyze the mobility, changeability, heterogeneity, and transformability of global moral conservatism. Fear of Queer Taiwan theorizes the glocalization of heteronormativity, addressing the liquidity of moral conservatism in seven dimensions—the transnational/geopolitical, sexual, temporal, ideological, institutional, racial, and spiritual liquidities. In 2026–2027, Kao welcomes invitations for book talks, keynote speeches, guest lectures, book club conversations, and community-engaged events.  

Kao’s Lab of Power, Pleasure, and Progress Studies welcomes students who share similar areas of interest to apply and do research with him. Interested students can book his office hours via his appointment calendar, or send an inquiry, with three available meeting time windows, to his email: yckao@vcu.edu.

Select Publications

Book

• Kao, Ying-Chao. 2026. Fear of Queer Taiwan: Anti-LGBTQ Movements Between Taiwan and the U.S. Religious Right. New York: New York University Press.
  https://nyupress.org/9781479832132/fear-of-queer-taiwan/

Articles

• Kao, Ying-Chao and Chun-Yuan Lin. 2025. “Dialectics of Society, the Court, and Representative Politics: Multi-Institutional Dialogic Constitutionalism in Taiwan’s Path to Marriage Equality.” Taiwan Journal of Democracy 21(2):137–168. (Download the article here)
• Kao, Ying-Chao. 2024. “The Coloniality of Queer Theory: The Effects of ‘Homonormativity’ on Transnational Taiwan’s Path to Equality.” Sexualities 27(1–2):136–53. doi.org/10.1177/13634607211047518 ♥

♥ Award winner of the Outstanding Article Award granted by the Society for the Study of Social Problems – Division of Gender, Sexual Behavior, Politics, and Communities, 2025.

• • Lee, Po-Han and Ying-Chao Kao†. 2022. “Health Apartheid during COVID-19: A Decolonial Critique of Racial Politics between Taiwan and the WHO.” International Journal of Taiwan Studies 5(2):375–402. doi.org/10.1163/24688800-05020006
    † The authors equally contributed and shared authorship.
  • Kao, Ying-Chao. 2022. “One Virus, Two Worlds: A Taiwanese Queer Stranger’s ‘World’-Traveling and Loving in the COVID U.S.” Pp. 216–229 in Global Feminist Autoethnographies During COVID-19: Displacements and Disruptions, edited by M. Heath, A. Darkwah, J. Beoku-Betts, and B. Purkayastha. New York: Routledge. Reviewed by three peer scholars.
    https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003223832-23/one-virus-two-worlds-ying-chao-kao. 
  • Kao, Ying-Chao. 2017. “Weapons of the Weak Soldiers: Military Masculinity and Embodied Resistance in Taiwanese Conscription.” Pp. 199–218 in East Asian Men: Masculinity, Sexuality and Desire, edited by X. Lin, C. Haywood, and M. Mac an Ghaill. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/978-1-137-55634-9
  • Kao, Ying-Chao and Herng-Dar Bih. 2013. “Masculinity in Ambiguity: Constructing Taiwanese Masculine Identities between Great Powers.” Pp. 175–91 in Masculinities in a Global Era, International and Cultural Psychology, edited by J. Gelfer. New York: Springer.
    https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4614-6931-5

Courses

• Sociology of Masculinities (SOCY 335)
• Sociology of Sexualities (SOCY 353)
• Sociology of Religion (SOCY 360)
• Religions, Sexualities, and Global Inequalities (SOCY 452)
• Contemporary Sociological Theory (SOCY 402, SOCY 502)
• Sociology Senior Seminar (SOCY 406)

Awards

• Burnside Watstein Award (LGBTQIA+ Community Contribution Award) at Virginia Commonwealth University, 2019.
  https://news.vcu.edu/article/three_honored_for_their_contributions_to_the_lgbtqia_community
• VCU First-Generation Student Office First-Generation Student Success Research Grant. Awarded project: “Identifying Needs and Supporting First-Gen, LGBTQ+ Students at VCU.” (PI: Dr. Yiwen Wei, Assistant Professor of Art Education; co- PIs: nicole marie killian, Associate Professor of Graphic Design and Dr. Ying-Chao Kao, Assistant Professor of Sociology). Jul 2022–Dec 2023.
• Taiwan Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwanese Overseas Pioneers Grants for New Scholars. 2019–2023. Awarded project: “Liquid Conservatism and ‘Hetero-Hegemony’: Transnational Religious Networks of Taiwanese ‘Pro-Family Movements’ and Their Inter-Asian/American Allies.” Mar 2019 – Feb 2023.
• Association for the Sociology of Religion (ASR), Joseph H. Fichter Research Grant. Awarded project: “Transnational Sex-Religious Network: A Mixed-Methods Study on U.S. and Taiwanese Christian Pro-Family Movements’ Cooperative Resistance against Marriage Equality.” 2017–2018.
• Taipei International Book Exhibition. The 2017 Editor Award of Translated Books. Taiwanese translation of Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Restrooms (Humphreys 1975; Kao trans. 2016, New Taipei City: Socio).

Languages

• American English
• Taiwanese/Chinese/Mandarin