Transgender Chinese Choreographer Jin Xing Paves the Way for Modern Dance in China

Photo Credit: CCTV

Jin Xing is probably not the person that comes to mind when most people picture a Chinese celebrity.  Dancer, choreographer, former colonel, and almost-judge of a Chinese reality show, Jin is also one of the first transgender people in China to have had sex reassignment surgery (SRS).  Her choreography speaks to gender, modern China, and social geography, and she is one of the pioneers of modern dance in China.  Her treatment by Chinese authorities is not unlike China’s response to transgender people as a whole–difficult to discern and decidedly mixed.

The topic of transgender law and policy in China is a difficult one to research online, unsurprisingly, particularly for an English speaker.  In 2009 and 2010, China was considering changes to their policies on SRS that would clarify and make policies more uniform, but also require stringent barriers to access including long waiting periods and family notification.  Even with surgery being haphazardly available, the cost is huge, and most of the estimated 400,000 transgender people in China do not have access to it.  It is clear that there is some discrimination against transgender people in China, particularly based in the relationship between China and sex tourism to Thailand, but the extent of discrimination is hard to quantify.

Jin Xing was the first person to receive SRS with official approval of the Chinese government, in the 1990s.  Her official identification says that she is female and she is legally married to a man.  The response to her transition was mixed, but she went on to direct China’s first independent modern dance company.  From the Bejing Modern Dance Ensemble, which she founded in 1996, Jin relocated to Shanghai and started the Jin Xing Dance Theatre, which is currently touring the United States performing a retrospective of Jin’s work.

Though Jin was trained in New York in the late 80s and early 90s, under such modern dance legends as Merce Cunningham and Martha Graham, she wanted to have SRS surgery in her home country, where she started dancing at the age of nine in the People’s Liberation Army.  Recently, she was disappointed to be banned from a reality television show by a Chinese television censor due to her transsexual identity.  In March, she will begin hosting a talk show on the arts.  Jin does not identify as a feminist, but her achievements as a woman in a male-dominated world are undoubtedly impressive.

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