Yesterday I started looking into trans acceptance and understanding in china. I came across articles about Jin Xing, china first trans clinic for minors (opened in 2021), China’s laws regarding obtaining HRT or GRS (mostly western sources), searched Bilibili and Baidu (videos) using the terms 同志, 變性 and 跨性别 combing through the comments. Finally looking through the stories of trans people who visited or worked in china.
I was surprised to find lots of roadblocks for trans people attempting to get HRT, GRS, change there paperwork etc. For example if you want to obtain HRT in china as a trans women you must notify your family, get written acceptance, prove you have no criminal record and undergo psychological treatment. This leads to a lot of trans people getting HRT online. However as of 2022 estradiol and cyproterone where added to a list making it illegal to obtain online.
The comment sections of videos on the topic are pretty bad id say similar to transphobic comments left in videos in America. The stories of non passing trans people who traveled to china getting mocked, belittled or in some cases having the police called on them. All of this shocked me and due to the language barrier I attempted to look past some of the comments or dismiss some of the horror stories.
It appears to me that china is severely behind on Trans acceptance and that’s why I’d like to open this up as a discussion on the matter as I am only one person who understands little mandarin or other Chinese dialects and would greatly appreciate any information on the matter.
sadly, that is one of the weakpoints of china, the misogyny and lgbtfobia left by colonization is still very present, personally i don’t think there is a excuse to not advanced in that point, so it is fair to criticize heavily, especially when they had a starting point of acceptance, i.e the gay god in taiosm religion.
cuba being in a very tough spot and starting as a deeply misogynist and homophobic country, today have one the most advanced legislation in the world
Hopefully in the future they will take some inspo from cuba regarding LGBTQ rights, thanks for the info!
It will happen only very slowly, because China is huge with a vast rural population and the government will not force faster cultural change in a way that leaves people thinking they’re being pushed into accepting ideals they don’t want, no matter how wrong those people may be.
It’s going to happen generationally, via schools and media teaching each successive generation to be more accepting.
But on the bright side what that means is we won’t see massive reactionary surges repealing progressive laws like we’re currently seeing recently over trans rights in Florida or Roe v Wade across the U.S.
When China steps forward on progressive issues they might only be small infrequent steps, but it’s the whole country stepping forward and there will be no stepping back.
It’s frustrating when you compare it to Western standards, but when you consider that most of China are culturally conservative, the progressive movement is doing quite well for itself.