Li Yinhe (李銀河) is little-known in this country, but widely-known in China. I have to admit I was unfamiliar with her until she hit the news this past weekend. So as I usually do in such a situation, I went to wikipedia. She is a retired sociologist and is considered China's first sexologist and "an activist for LGBT right's in the People's Republic of China." She was married to Wang Xiaobo (王小波), renowned Chinese novelist and essayist.
Her main academic interests have been sexual norms in contemporary People's Republic of China, homosexuality, diverse sexual behaviors including sadomasochism, and women's studies.
Born in Beijing in 1952, Li attended Shanxi University from 1974 to 1977. She became an editor at the government newspaper Guangming Daily, then a researcher at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. She married Wang Xiaobo in 1980. In 1982 she went to the United States of America and obtained a Ph.D. in sociology from University of Pittsburgh (1988). Afterwards she worked as a postdoc then as an instructor at Peking University. In 1992 she became a professor at the Institute of Sociology at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Li has been active in calling for greater tolerance for nonconventional sexual activities in China. She thinks the country is undergoing a de facto sexual revolution, and encourages people to re-examine traditional attitudes towards sexual promiscuity and homosexuality. She proposes decriminalization of orgies and prostitution (both currently illegal in China). She also believes that monogamy is a personal decision made between a couple, and should not be enforced by law or social pressure.
Recently Li was attacked in a blog by an unknown commentator by the name of Liu Chang'an,
who charged that...
Li was a lesbian who was "cohabiting for many years with a 'tomboy'." He also wondered aloud if the boy adopted by Li and her partner was "incapable of socialising with his peers and of attending school" because of the "abnormal family environment" he grew up in. Li has "deceived the entire nation" about her sexual orientation because "licentiousness is the domain of homosexuals", and that Li's promotion of libertarian sexual mores over the years was because of her "insecurity" and her need for "affirmation of her sexual orientation". Now the whole world would see that "the emperor has no clothes", he charged.
The normally intensely private Li felt the need to respond.
How anyone lives, who they choose to spend their lives with, these are all private matters, and I have no obligation to explain this to anyone, but since someone has made such vicious allegations, I will have to set the record straight.
I am indeed a heterosexual, not a homosexual. I have no interest at all in the female body.
My partner was born as a female, but identifies as a male. He is only able to fall in love with heterosexual women, not homosexual women.
She later went on to reveal how she met her current partner, a female-to-male transgender taxi driver, after her husband, the renowned novelist Wang Xiaobo, passed away in 1997 from a heart attack.
The two have since been living together for 17 years, and have also adopted a child that was abandoned by his biological parents.
I am not a fan of kids, so with Xiaobo, we chose not to have kids, but [my current partner] likes kids, and so we decided to adopt a child from the Children's Welfare Institute.
He may not have the IQ of a normal child, but he's an adorable, kind-hearted and loveable boy."
At 14 years of age, he's still only in Primary 5, while his peers have already gone on to middle school. I always encourage him with the example of Chen Zhangliang. Apparently he only attended first grade at 9 years of age, but look at him, isn't he a great social scientist now?
--Li
Li felt she needed to add
I need to clarify that when I say I'm a heterosexual, I'm just stating a matter of fact. By no means do I think that I'm more normal than homosexuals or morally more superior than them. Homosexuals and heterosexuals are equally normal, and equally human.
The Chinese version of Twitter (Weibo), was swamped with discussion of the exchange. Some expressed scorn and derision, but Li also won the hearts and minds of some of China's opinion leaders, such as the actress Yao Chen and media mogul Hung Huang, both of whom posted messages of support.
If you've been together for 17 years, you deserve the blessings whether you're heterosexual, homosexual, or whatever-sexual you may be.
--Commentator Lian Peng
Homosexuality, transsexuality and AIDS all used to be taboo subjects, but today, we discuss and debate them, and they have even come to be tolerated and accepted by mainstream society. Everyone is unique in some way, so let's work to have society catch up with science. Respecting the choices of the Li Yinhe's among us, is respecting ourselves.
--People's Daily
[Li's reveleation] will help the (transgender community) tremendously, whose voices are hardly heard by the public. It helps with their visibility.
--Ying Xin, executive director of the Beijing Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Center
Even after Li's article, people are still confused about transgenders and homosexuals. We need more public discussions.
--Hu Zhijun, PFLAG China, who applauded Li's bravery and candour in revealing her relationship and praised her for shining a light on transgender Chinese, who are faced with greater social pressure than homosexuals because they do not identify with their physical gender
Even in the US there is a huge number of people who do not understand that a man who has a relationship with a trans woman or a woman who has a relationship with a trans man may both be heterosexual, or that there are indeed trans women who are lesbians and trans men who are gay.