The Fox Spirit, the Stone Maiden, and Other Transgender Histories from Late Imperial China

Co-winner, 2025 John Boswell Prize, LGBTQ+ History Association In imperial China, people moved away from the gender they were assigned at birth in different ways and for many reasons. Eunuchs, boy actresses, and clergy left behind normative gender roles defined by family and procreation. “Stone maidens”—women deemed physically incapable of vaginal intercourse—might depart from families or marriages to become Buddhist or Daoist nuns. Anatomical males who presented as women sometimes took a conven