Transgender Icon Slapped With An Official Performance Ban
A famous transgender icon and television host is reportedly facing a ban. If enforced, the ban will block her from performing in the city of Guangzhou, China later this year.
Jin Xing, known as China’s first publicly recognized transgender woman, underwent sex reassignment surgeries in 1995. A decade later, she married her German husband, Heinz-Gerd Oidtmann, in 2005. Jin launched a popular show, The Jin Xing Show, in 2012, which was abruptly canceled in 2017 for unknown reasons.
October 22, the star, who boasts nearly 14 million followers on Weibo, told her followers that the Guangzhou Municipal Culture, Radio, Television and Tourism Bureau refused to approve Sunrise, her stage adaptation of a work belonging to one of China’s most important playwrights, Cao Yu.
The play, which Jin directed and stars in, debuted in 2021 in Shanghai. Its performance in Guangzhou was scheduled for December.
I have learned that the approval for my self-directed and self-starred stage play Sunrise has been rejected for personal reasons. Please provide the real reason for the refusal and present an official document. Otherwise, stop abusing your power.
We all live under the same policies. Why has this stage play, which has toured the country for four years and received widespread acclaim from audiences, been denied approval in Guangzhou? Please respond, thank you!
— Jin Xing
Jin called out the Director of the Approval Department at the Tourism Bureau and demanded an explanation for the ban. Staff from the Tourism Bureau have since stated that approval might have been denied due to incomplete application materials. Even so, the ban has sparked speculation that Sunrise was banned because of Jin’s beliefs.
During one performance, which took place in Taiyuan on January 13, an audience member held up a rainbow flag with the text “Love is regardless of gender” written on it. Jin, who brought the flag up on stage, told her audience that she agreed with that sentiment.
