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Transmen and transwomen in China: darkness and resilience

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dc.contributor.authorXue, Yan, author
dc.contributor.authorKwiatkowski, Lynn, advisor
dc.contributor.authorSnodgrass, Jeffrey, committee member
dc.contributor.authorDaum, Courtenay, committee member
dc.date.accessioned2021-06-07T10:20:12Z
dc.date.available2021-06-07T10:20:12Z
dc.date.issued2021
dc.description.abstractAnthropologists have studied transgenderism in various cultures and societies; however, few of these studies investigate the topics of identity development, family lives, and transgender community engagement, and their interwoven relationships in a socialist society. In this research, I look at the lives of Chinese transgender people and aim to understand what roles the government, family and domestic transgender community institutions play in their identity development trajectory. I approach this main research question through a contextualized cultural perspective, analyze it within a critical-interpretive medical anthropological framework, and draw from both anthropological and non-anthropological literature that focus on these three themes. Research data is collected through a mixed qualitative methodology, including online and offline participant observation and semi-structured interviews of ten Chinese transwomen, ten Chinese transmen, and three key informants. Findings suggest that for Chinese transgender respondents, their trajectory of realizing, exploring, and living as their identified gender, which is different from their assigned sex/gender, is commonly repressed and stigmatized on an everyday basis within the cisgender male-female binary system in Chinese society. During these processes, acquiring family recognition and building community connection are respondents' vital sources of resilience, which not only consolidate their (trans)gender identification but also facilitate their transitions. Nevertheless, this is not to say that the family and community institutions are immune to the sexist ideology and cisgender prejudice circulating in Chinese society, which can generate distress mixed with their empowering influences on Chinese transgender respondents. Therefore, throughout their identity development trajectory, respondents always have to resort to their own agency to protect and emancipate themselves from both structural discrimination and transnormative discipline that operate within the institutions which are commonly expected to enhance the resiliency of transgender people.
dc.format.mediumborn digital
dc.format.mediummasters theses
dc.identifierXUE_colostate_0053N_16539.pdf
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10217/232525
dc.languageEnglish
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherColorado State University. Libraries
dc.relation.ispartof2020-
dc.rightsCopyright and other restrictions may apply. User is responsible for compliance with all applicable laws. For information about copyright law, please see https://libguides.colostate.edu/copyright.
dc.subjectChinese transgender studies
dc.subjectfamily lives
dc.subjecttransgender identity development
dc.subjectcritical-interpretive medical anthropology
dc.subjectChinese transgender activism
dc.subjecttransgender community engagement
dc.titleTransmen and transwomen in China: darkness and resilience
dc.typeText
dcterms.rights.dplaThis Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights (https://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/). You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
thesis.degree.disciplineAnthropology and Geography
thesis.degree.grantorColorado State University
thesis.degree.levelMasters
thesis.degree.nameMaster of Arts (M.A.)

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