Chinese transgender celebrity is refused permission to stage play

Huang Chun-mei for RFA Mandarin

Read RFA’s coverage of this story in Chinese

A transgender Chinese playwright has stirred controversy by questioning authorities in the city of Guangzhou over their decision to deny her permission to put on a play, raising new questions over censorship and the status of the LGBT community in China.

Jin Xing, who is also a well-known choreographer and dancer, had been hoping to stage an adaptation of the play “Sunrise” in the southern city in December but authorities rejected her request.

Jin, who had been planning to both direct and star in the play, questioned the decision in a post on the Weibo social media site on Oct. 22, saying she believed the refusal was “personal” and demanding that the official in charge of the bureau that refused her permission tell her the “real reason”.

Such public defiance is rare in China and it sparked a flurry of social media interest with Jin’s post attracting more than 130 million views and 140,000 “likes” on her Weibo page.

The following evening, she deleted her message and sent out a new one that read: “I am just being myself and I only represent myself. I will always be Jin Xing, regardless of gender.”

The Guangzhou Culture and Tourism Bureau, which declined to issue permission for the play, later issued a statement denying that there was any personal reason for the decision, with one official suggesting that Jin’s application to put on the play might have been incorrectly submitted.

That didn’t stop a wave of speculation on the ban in the socially conservative country where LGBT issues are sensitive.

China decriminalized homosexuality in 1997 and removed it from a list of mental illnesses in 2001. Several civil society organizations with a focus on supporting sexual diversity such as the Beijing LGBT Center and Shanghai PRIDE were set up during the 2000s.

However, following President Xi Jinping’s rise to power in 2012, official institutions have cracked down on expressions of non-heterosexual identity and celebrities who openly identify as non-heterosexual are few and far between.

Several LGBT accounts on the Wechat platform have been banned in recent years and students at the prestigious Tsinghua University were warned for distributing rainbow flags in 2022. A Taiwanese pop singer was forbidden from performing an LGBT inspired song at a Beijing concert in 2023.

‘An artist that doesn’t fit’

Some of Jin’s supporters and online commentators pointed to a widely circulated video of a Jan. 13 performance by her troupe in the city of Taiyuan, in which she waved a rainbow flag bearing the message: “love is love and love has nothing to do with gender.” Jin repeated the slogan before taking a curtain call with the cast.

One independent social commentator who asked to be identified as Ji Feng told Radio Free Asia that permission for Jin’s staging of “Sunrise” had nothing to do with the play itself, which was written by well-known playwright Cao Yu and is a broad critique of China’s conservative government during the early 20th century, before the Communist Party came to power.

For Ji, the reason for the refusal lay with the director, Jin, coming up against a government that is intent on the arts portraying ideal views of history, culture and national identity.

“Jin often says things that the leaders don’t want to hear,” said Ji.

Regional authorities, like those in Guangzhou, are nervous about upsetting their seniors and have become increasingly wary of, and more willing to ban, performances that could touch on politically sensitive issues. The result, Ji said, was the stunting of culture.

“An active culture will demand freedom. If you let one voice speak, how can you stop a hundred from following?”

Current affairs commentator Zheng Xuguang told RFA authorities now saw the issue of same-sex relations in a more negative light than they did during earlier, when attitudes were becoming more tolerant.

“While once fashionable, since Xi took charge the government can’t stand LGBTQ,” Zhen said.

Artist Du Yinghong said Jin did not conform with party perceptions.

“Jin is an transgender artist that just doesn’t fit with the Communist Party’s preferred ‘clean cut’ image,” Du told RFA.

“When censorship tightens, such artists are going to be banned. It’s just a question of sooner or later … There’s no happy ending for any independent creative types in China. Anyone thinking outside the box is going to be ground down,” Du said.

Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Taejun Kang.