Does anybody here know how the Chinese intersex community views perisex usage of the term yinyang ren (陰陽人) as a cultural gender?
All the intersex sources I've found on the term describe yinyang ren as either just a term for intersex, or as a reclaimed slur for intersex.
The old website of OII-Chinese, as quoted by @whimsy-flags, described it as:
“[Yinyang ren] are people whose physical gender cannot be clearly classified as male or female… Yin and Yang people do not mean people who deliberately choose to change their physiological characteristics.” (emphasis mine)
Yet I've also found a handful of sources from the perisex non-binary community that seem to view the term as a "third gender" for androgynous/bigender people, that oh just so happens to also sometimes include intersex people. I've noticed the sources that seem to be doing this are either members of the Chinese diaspora or just... not Chinese? 🤔
(edit to add: Chinese Wikipedia's entry for 陰陽人 is just a redirect to the entry on intersex/sex, and Wiktionary also indicates it's a word for intersex).
As an outsider it looks to me like the issue of perisex enbies being insensitive and thinking it's okay if they call themselves the h-word, combined with the issue of Global North wishful thinking about cultural genders. 😕
But I'm not Chinese, it's not my culture. I could be missing important context! I'd like to know if I'm reading this situation correctly or if I'm missing something. Thanks! 💜
