Chinese government official becomes a woman aged 84
An 84-year-old retired government official from southern China has become an unlikely trailblazer for transgender rights after speaking out about his decision to become a woman – in his ninth decade of life.
By Tom Phillips in Shanghai
10:09AM BST 14 Jun 2012
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/9330965/Chinese-government-official-becomes-a-woman-aged-84.htmlQian Jinfan was born in Jiaxing, a city around 50 miles from Shanghai, in 1928. A Chinese calligrapher, literary theorist and art collector, he built a career as a mid-ranking civil servant in Foshan, in southern Guangdong province, and married aged 54. Four years ago, aged 80, he decided he wanted to be a woman.
This week Mr Qian spoke publicly for the first time about his decision, transforming himself into an unusual symbol of changing attitudes toward sex and sexuality in China.
"This is my real-self. I have covered myself up for the past 80-ish years," Mr Qian, who now prefers to be called Yi Ling, uses female lavatories and is reputedly China's oldest openly transgender person, told Guangzhou's Southern Metropolis Daily.
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Man enough to be a woman at 84
http://shanghaiist.com/2012/06/14/man-enough-to-be-a-woman-at-84.phpQian Jinfan (钱今凡), a 84-year-old calligrapher, art critic and retired government official based in Foshan, has become China's oldest openly transgender individual, after outing herself in an an exclusive interview with the Southern Metropolitan Daily, in her bid to promote understanding of transgenders in China.
Born male in 1928 in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province in a family of civil servants, Qian told the Daily that she realised she was trapped in the wrong body as early as three years old.
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Throughout their lives, Qian's parents remained clueless that their son secretly wished to become a woman. When Qian got married as a man at the age of 54, the wife too was totally unaware.
It was not until December 2008, at the grand old age of 80, did Qian feel the time was now or never to start taking female hormones, and to dress as a woman.
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Man kept transgender secret for over 75 years
Shanghai Daily, June 14, 2012
http://www.china.org.cn/china/2012-06/14/content_25644690.htmIn September 2009, Qian wrote a letter to the Foshan Cultural, Radio, TV, Film, Press and Publication Bureau in Guangdong Province, where he retired, to express his intention.
"I didn't write the letter on impulse. I didn't care whether the authority would degrade my ranking or decrease my income," he said.
After revealing his secret, his relatives, friends and the bureau have shown understanding.
"I had prepared to die to defend my decision. To my surprise, they were all very open and accepted it," he said.
