Beijing LGBT Centre (北京同志中心) Publishes China’s 1st National Survey of Transgender Population

[陳德聰]

This recent International Transgender Day of Remembrance, the Beijing LGBT Centre released the results of the first national survey targeting China’s transgender population (“2017中国跨性别群体生存现状调研”). The release was accompanied by a cartoon video breakdown, sort of like a couple minutes of Transgender Discourse 101.

 

This survey was conducted in collaboration with several other organisations but I am more interested in the fact that it was conducted at all. I think this is a positive step towards much needed research and education around transgender issues in China, but it feels curious that it has been framed (as may be familiar to some of us in the Chinese-speaking LGBT community) in the usual “this is a Western concept” way. But presumably with more research, more culturally appropriate terminology should emerge. Perhaps a reclamation of terms like 陰陽人, and hopefully an understanding that not everyone desires or needs to undergo sex reassignment surgery to be their true selves.

 

I am accustomed to putting content notes on things I post to social media so I’ll do so here as well.

 

** content note: the video contains cartoon depictions of self harm, suicide, domestic violence, and uses before/after-style photos of known trans people **

 

Video with Simplified Chinese subtitles (Youku):

http://m.youku.com/video/id_XMzE3MDE4MDA4MA==.html

 

Video with English subtitles (YouTube):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K0CdK1ZKrok

 

For terminology buffs:

 

跨性別(者)

kuàxìngbié(zhě)

Transgender (person)

 

性取向

xìngqǔxiàng

Sexual orientation

 

性別認同

xìngbié rèntóng

Gender identity

 

跨性別男性 (又稱: 女跨男)

kuàxìngbié nánxìng (also: nǚkuànán)

Transgender man

 

跨性別女性 (又稱: 男跨女)

kuàxìngbié nǚxìng (also: nánkuànǚ)

Transgender woman

 

性別酷兒

xìngbié kùér

Genderqueer

 

指派性別

zhǐpài xìngbié

Assigned sex

 

非二元性別(者)

fēi èryuán xìngbié(zhě)

Gender Non-binary (person)

 

轉變期

zhuǎnbiànqī

Transition period

 

異裝者

yìzhuāngzhě

Cross dresser

 

扭轉治療

niǔzhuǎn zhìliáo

Conversion therapy

 

激素治療

jīsù zhìliáo

Hormone therapy

 

性別重置手術

xìngbié chóngzhì shǒushù

Sex reassignment surgery

 

And a bonus that doesn’t appear in the video:

 

順性別(者)

shùnxìngbié(zhě)

Cisgender (person)

[DavyJonesLocker]

Surprised to see that in China. Hasn't LGBT been replaced with some other more encompassing acronym now? 

[陳德聰]

Like LGBTQ+, LGBTQIA, etc.? The Beijing LGBT Centre's Chinese name uses the word 同志, which I had previously thought only referred to gay men, but seems to be similar to "queer" in its use by some people as an all-encompassing term. However, I think that realising the so-called "community" is not a singular entity also means different people in different places will use different acronyms.

[DavyJonesLocker]

I had to attend a lot of these awareness courses over the years in my working career, the acronyms seems to get updated a lot. It was hard to keep up to date as to the different categories.

 

 

[Lu]

Thanks for the vocab! I like how Chinese is much more understandable in some cases (順性別 makes so much sense). What's with the 'preferred pronouns' though? I'd think that's not nearly as big an issue in Chinese. 先生/小姐, sure, but when it comes to pronouns everyone is nǐ and tā anyway.

I wonder if that little film was really all 'this is a western concept'? I saw it more as 'the US do it so it's great' kind of attitude. But it's hard to really tell that apart. I really liked that they have ready examples of famous trans Chinese people, people everyone who watches tv will know. One 金星 might help more than a hundred Youtube videos.

And I was pleasantly surprised (but not really surprised) that the Dutch embassy sponsored the whole thing :-)

[陳德聰]

@Lu

I think it certainly felt like I was watching a translation from English to Chinese. But I suspect this is because the conversation has not been a very public one in China and so has not had much time to evolve to fit the actual practical realities of people’s day to day lives.

 

I think it was good to hear “preferred pronouns or nouns” as there are so many times when people feel the need to use 先生/女士 out of politeness and times when people gender others relentlessly with things like 男的/女的 qualifiers, as if 律師 or 醫生 is not enough of a descriptor.

[Lu]

23 minutes ago, 陳德聰 said:

and times when people gender others relentlessly with things like 男的/女的 qualifiers, as if 律師 or 醫生 is not enough of a descriptor.

God I hate those. Managed to convince a scholar writing an article recently that if he wrote （女） for all the women, he should also write （男） for all the men. He changed it and gendered everyone mentioned, not just the women (no non-binary etc people were involved). I was very pleased with this.

 

Chinese could be such a gender-neutral language, with so many genderless titles to choose from (老師，主任，X長，導演，醫生，師傅，等等等) and no distiction between tā and tā, and instead they push in the gender at all cost.

 

Anyway. I'll stop ranting now. The vocab is good.