Being Transgender in East Asia

Once, when I was on a bus, one of three women sitting across from me said "Is that a man or a woman?" One of her companions said, "Of course it's a woman -- she's wearing a scrunchie" (which I was). It was slightly infuriating that they talked about me in the third-person -- did they think that people who know enough Chinese to ride the bus wouldn't understand them? -- but I took it as a compliment for my passing ability. Also, the first time I went into the bath-house at my dorm, the attendant there said "Hey, where ya' goin'?" when I headed for the male wing. She figured it out a bit later, but for a second, I passed.

A major TG experience in China came during my last two weeks there. Classes were out, and I had two weeks to get from Beijing (where I was living) to Hong Kong (where my flight back to the US started). I decided to take a train down, stopping at various spots and touring the east coast of China a bit.

I also decided to make as much as possible of the trip as a woman.

I started the night before I left Beijing, when I polished my nails (I had bought lots of cosmetics in Beijing as well). That meant that, as I left my dorm, I had to wear gloves, and when I left, it was early June. I was understandably hot and sweaty, and my adrenaline was pumping furiously. In the cab I took to the train station, the cabby must have been very surprised when I took off my rain jacket (revealing my blouse and the curves of my breasts) and took out my compact and put on makeup. By the time I got to the station, I had made the transformation.

My plan was to take a train to Qufu (choo-foo), where Confucius lived and is buried. I got to the station easily, and staked out my place to wait for the train. I was sweating profusely, but I think I was still quite passable. A woman sitting next to me gave me a fan. Chinese people are generally quite hospitable, but this woman was especially so.

I sat waiting for a very long time. A VERY long time. The time when my train was supposed to have left came and went, and nervousness added itself to the adrenaline and heat I was feeling. Was I screwed?

The woman sitting next to me, who had started a conversation with me, saw that I was nervous and asked which train I was taking. I told her, and she told me it had already left. I was crying at this point -- what was I going to do? She told me it would be okay, and told me to follow her onto another train.

I assumed that everything was okay, and I was on my way to Qufu. But it came out as I talked to her (she was sitting across from me) that we were going to Tianjin (a.k.a. Tien-tsin). What had happened, was she kidnapping me? What was her problem? Well, it turned out that we were just going to Tianjin first, where she was headed, where I would get the whole thing sorted out at the Tianjin station.

She endeared herself to me when, after she asked "How many siblings do you have?" and I explained that I was the oldest of three, she said "So, you're the eldest sister?" She may have been totally aware of my status, but if she was, she acted like I was quite natural.

I also felt very confident about my voice. Talking in Chinese already required a bit of concentration (I dream in Chinese, but I'm definitely not totally fluent yet), so talking femme was only a bit more effort.

When we got to Tianjin, she explained that the ticket problem would have to wait till the morning; for the night, we would go to a one-room apartment her family maintained in Tianjin. This meant that we would sleep together in the same bed. Either I was totally passable, or she had interesting semi-sexual tastes. She never gave an inkling of reading me, so I have to assume that I passed.

This was especially confirmed in my mind when, the next day, after we got the ticket problem sorted out, we went to a photo studio to wait until the train came. Most Chinese people don't own their own cameras, so there are tons of studios around where they can get their pictures taken and processed. Also, because most people can't afford tuxedoes, etc. the studios have all kinds of these props on hand. So first, she and I got out pictures taken together -- buddy pictures. Then, the attendants asked me if I wanted some pictures of me, myself. I said yes, and timidly suggested that I be allowed to use one of the props I had seen hanging in a closet -- a wedding dress. They said yes, which again confirmed that I was passing. I put the dress on, although it didn't fit very well (I am not as petite as most Chinese women -- about a 10 in US sizes). They gently chided me for being so pudgy -- standard Chinese care-through-chastisement. I had several pictures taken, including some with a full veil and holding a bouquet of roses.

So how did the pictures turn out? I don't know. The pictures probably took several days to process, and although I left my US address with the woman, she never sent me the pictures. Did she figure out my sex and reject me? Did she lose my address? I'll never know.

Well, undaunted, I continued my trip south. I eventually got to Qufu. If you ever have the chance, go there. Qufu is a beautiful, small, quaint town, with beautiful architecture and very nice people. I didn't have any particularly TG-related experiences there, which may be part of why I liked it so much -- I was simply, purely, flawlessly a woman when I was there.

My next stop was Shanghai. Shanghai was everything Qufu was not -- bustling, dangerous, new, hostile. Again, maybe my memories of the place are clouded by my TG experiences there. Shanghai was bad from the start -- first, I couldn't find a cheap, available hotel to stay in. Then, when I finally did, the clerk gave me a form to fill out, just standard front-desk stuff, but I hadn't had to deal with it yet -- the hotel in Qufu was too unofficial and backwater to have such forms. Of course, the form had those two dreaded little boxes, and I checked female. Being homosexual is supposed to be a capital crime in China; I didn't know the penalty for crossdressing, but I assumed it wouldn't be too kindly. The adrenaline was pumping again...

The adrenaline peaked when the clerk asked to see my passport. Again, this was standard stuff, but his attitude said that he had read me. If anyone's going to be able to read a foreign TG in China, it's a hotel clerk in Shanghai, that most worldly of cities. My fears were confirmed when he erased my "Female" and crossed off "Male." Was I about to be reported?

I spent very little time out-of-doors in Shanghai. The place was huge, bustling, dangerous. And I didn't want to have to pass by that clerk's gaze. I bought a few packages of ramen and holed up in my room, watching CNN International and the street scene from my window.

My energy was getting eaten up, and maintaining the illusion was getting harder with my crappy Chinese make-up and dulling razor blades. I began to have more guts than energy -- I began to just think "Screw you if you can't handle it." This has developed to the present.

My next stop was Hangzhou (Hong-joe), just a bit south of Shanghai. Hangzhou is supposed to be one of the most beautiful cities in China, largely because of its famous West Lake, but I grew up in Minneapolis, and lakes have to be pretty good to impress me. I was also getting more and more tired -- it was already a week since I'd been in Beijing -- but I think I was still passable, at least at the beginning.

This seems particularly clear to me when I remember the guy who sat next to me on the train. He started up a conversation with me, and, when we got to Hangzhou, he was very helpful in finding me a pedicab to a hotel, and in getting in to the hotel. He even helped me unload my luggage, which was a gargantuan feat (I was carrying back piles of books, among other things).

I was thankful at the start, but I started to get suspicious when he tried to come into my room and talk to me. It was still daylight, and I probably didn't have much to worry about (rape is also a capital offense in China, especially when it's rape of a foreigner), but I begged off, saying I was tired. Later that night, though, we got back together, and he took me to West Lake. We walked through a public park, going around various pathways, all along being eaten up by mosquitoes (it was especially bad for me because I was wearing nylons). We eventually sat down on a bench, and we got very close to kissing (I would have welcomed the experience, even though I wasn't interested in him specifically). But finally, the mosquitoes got to me and I had him walk me back to the hotel.

The next day, I went to West Lake. I knew that my passability was slipping -- I was getting lax about shaving -- because when I tried to rent a boat to go out onto the lake, some of the attendants grouped around me and grilled me about my gender. I maintained in my femme voice that I was a woman, but they then wanted to know why I had stubble. I had very nearly decided to give it up at that point already.

Later that day, I went out to a beautiful Buddhist site, the Lingyin (Ling-een) Temple. The temple grounds were spectacular, and they have a standing Siddhartha Gautama (the original, historical Buddha) statue there which is about 90 feet tall. But there was also a People's Liberation Army officer around, who seemed to have read me and seemed to be following me. Had he seen through my facade? I'm still not sure, but the little game of avoiding him made me decide to drop the effort A.S.A.P.

Hangzhou was the last city I made the effort to appear femme in. It would've been anyway, because my next stop was Guangzhou (Canton) and Hong Kong, and I didn't want to deal with crossing the border en femme. So, my last day in Hangzhou, I came out of my hotel in drabs. I may have amazed the attendant, but at that point I didn't care. It was nice to go without makeup and lingerie in that hot and sticky weather.

Well, all that was three years ago, and since then, I've done many things. I started seeing a therapist last year, I've decided that I am fully and certainly TS since then, I've taken a lot more Chinese, I've gained a lot of self-acceptance and I don't care so much about others' disapproval now, for better or worse.

Next Month: A Trip to Taiwan