A Chinese octogenarian has decided to undergo a sex change aged 84.
Qian Jinfan was born a boy in Jiaxing, south of Shanghai. He rose to become a mid-ranking government official in Foshan, Guangdong province, and married when he was 54.
In 2008, just after his 80th birthday, he decided he wanted to become a woman.
He started taking hormones to give himself breasts and has spent the past four years dressing in female clothes, using women’s bathrooms and insisting friends and family call him Yi Ling.
Now, he is seeking a sex change operation to make his journey from man to woman official.
“This is my real self. I have covered myself up for the past 80 years,” Qian told Guangzhou’s Southern Metropolis Daily.
“I hope to stand up against the prejudice people hold towards transsexuals. I want to eliminate it.”
Qian told the newspaper he has felt like a female for as long as he can remember.
His decision to make his gender struggle public has won praise from China’s gay, lesbian and transgender community, who have declared him a hero.
Others have not been so accepting. Qian says many of his neighbours do not approve of his decision to become a woman, and he suffers regular abuse from children near his home, who call him a “man-monster”.
“I don’t think I am inferior to others. I will not give up easily. I am not wrong,” he said.
