Trans/national(ism) in Chinese Trans Memoir: Jin Xing’s Shanghai Tango and Lei Ming’s Life Beyond My Body

Two Chinese trans memoirs, Jin Xing’s Shanghai Tango (2007) and Lei Ming’s Life Beyond My Body (2016), present different possibilities of transnationality and transnormativity within the Chinese context of the pre-Covid-19 era. While both memoirs follow a Western structure of traditional trans memoirs, their embracing of Marxist and nationalist rhetoric or Christian concepts of the body present a significant departure from the traditional Western model. Jin is able to achieve the Chinese version of transnormativity approved by the Chinese state and live as an openly trans person who disavows politics; Lei remains ‘stealth’ and finds solace in a Christian discourse of androgyny. The texts are influenced by Western ideals of transness and medical transition, as well as neoliberal capitalism and Western religion, and are framed and formatted in English by Western editors and for Western readers. The iterations of transtopia that Lei and Jin find at the end of their narratives, however, are rooted in a sense of belonging to China.