Who are the Zhongxing Nu Hai? Gender, sexuality, and the configuration of gender-neutral identity in contemporary Taiwan

Abstract

ABSTRACT The rise of the zhongxing (“gender in between”) phenomenon has attracted considerable attention in contemporary Taiwanese society. In spite of this increased cultural visibility, however, questions of how young women who identify as zhongxing establish and develop their identities remain unexplored. This study aims to bridge this gap, based on in-depth interviews with 15 young women who self-identify as zhongxing, and designed to capture their subjective experiences and practices. The resulting data will be used to investigate the diverse ways in which young zhongxing women in contemporary Taiwan enact this identity in relation to their female bodies and sexual identities. One key finding is that these women are reconfiguring the linear idea of a gender spectrum, insofar as they perceive and practice gender neutrality through unexpected collage and juxtaposition of binary gender traits. Moreover, in contrast to the common fixed association between female masculinity and lesbian sexuality, the sampled young Taiwanese zhongxing women characterize their sexual identification as contingent and fluid, as a result of the ambivalent status of zhongxing as a gender identity. Our analysis emphasizes the creative and disruptive agency of younger generations of women to develop and configure non-binary gender identities that are capable of mediating and resisting heteronormative assumptions of non-normative gender and sexuality.