Yi Ling (, born 1928,

Jiaxing Jiaxing (), alternately romanized as Kashing, is a prefecture-level city in northern Zhejiang province, China. Lying on the Grand Canal of China, Jiaxing borders Hangzhou to the southwest, Huzhou to the west, Shanghai to the northeast, and the p ...

, China), formerly known as Qian Jinfan (), is the oldest known

transgender A transgender (often shortened to trans) person has a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were sex assignment, assigned at birth. The opposite of ''transgender'' is ''cisgender'', which describes perso ...

person in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. She started living as a woman at age 80, and had sex-reassignment surgery in 2010. Yi first came out publicly as a transgender woman in 2012. Yi works as a

calligrapher Calligraphy () is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instruments. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "the art of giving form to signs in an exp ...

and

art critic An art critic is a person who is specialized in analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating art. Their written critiques or reviews contribute to art criticism and they are published in newspapers, magazines, books, exhibition brochures, and catalogue ...

, and was once a government official. In 2009, she submitted a declaration letter to the Foshan Culture and Media Bureau, where she had worked before retiring; at that time she was starting to take

hormone A hormone (from the Ancient Greek, Greek participle , "setting in motion") is a class of cell signaling, signaling molecules in multicellular organisms that are sent to distant organs or tissues by complex biological processes to regulate physio ...

s to enlarge her

breast The breasts are two prominences located on the upper ventral region of the torso among humans and other primates. Both sexes develop breasts from the same embryology, embryological tissues. The relative size and development of the breasts is ...

s, and to wear women's clothes. The government did not lower her

pension A pension (; ) is a fund into which amounts are paid regularly during an individual's working career, and from which periodic payments are made to support the person's retirement from work. A pension may be either a " defined benefit plan", wh ...

or refuse to allow her to attend conferences. In 2010 she wrote another letter to inform the authorities that she was a

woman A woman is an adult female human. Before adulthood, a female child or Adolescence, adolescent is referred to as a girl. Typically, women are of the female sex and inherit a pair of X chromosomes, one from each parent, and women with functi ...

. Yi Ling has a son, and has been

married Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children (if any), and b ...

to a woman, Liang, since the age of 54.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yi, Ling 1928 births Living people Chinese art critics Chinese calligraphers Chinese transgender women Chinese LGBTQ artists Transgender women artists 20th-century Chinese LGBTQ people 21st-century Chinese LGBTQ people 21st-century Chinese artists 21st-century Chinese women artists