This article focuses on how the policy on same-sex marriage and a person’s social locations impact upon Chinese lesbians’ life chances and welfare. Bringing the familisation and defamilisation literature, which has predominantly focused on heterosexual populations and families, into dialogue with an intersectionality perspective, we map the ways in which gender, sexuality, and class intersect in shaping lesbians’ experiences of defamilisation and familisation risks. The findings, drawn from interviews conducted in Beijing, China, reveal that the absence of legalised same-sex marriage, coupled with a lack of familial and societal recognition of same-sex relationships, exposes lesbians to both defamilisation and familisation risks, leading to difficulties in choosing whether and how to participate in the family. The intersectionality lens guides us to move beyond the heterosexual/homosexual boundary and to rethink the possibility of welfare alliances that can improve the welfare of not only lesbians but also other groups of women and minorities.

This article highlights the interconnection between Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ+) research and social policy research, and argues that a greater focus on the welfare needs of gender and sexual minority people can advance the defamilisation and familisation literature. While defamilisation and familisation studies have gained significant attention for examining whether individuals, especially women, have adequate opportunities to balance their work and caregiving responsibilities, most of them pay insufficient attention to the challenges faced by LGBTQ+ individuals in organising their caring and working life. This article addresses this research gap by undertaking three analytical tasks. Firstly, it explores the defamilisation and familisation risks faced by LGBTQ+ individuals. Secondly, it presents a ‘queer life mix framework’ to inform the selection of suitable welfare models to guide governments in tackling these risks. Thirdly, it demonstrates how the ideas of the queer life mix framework can be put into practice.