There were no transgender groups or communities in Hong Kong until after the turn of the century. Today they are still known as a "sexual minority" in China. Because Chinese transgender studies is so unfocused, a wide variety of terms are used in relation to transgender in the varieties of Chinese.
In Hong Kong, there are specific derogatory terms used towards transgender people. Terms for crossdressing are many and varied. There are several terms competing as translations of the English drag king , but none has reached currency yet. Sinologists often look to theatrical arts when imaging China in a transgender frame because of the prominent presence of cross-gender behavior.
Peking Opera , also known as Beijing Opera, had male actors playing female dan characters. Men traditionally played women's roles due to women being excluded from performing in front of the public.
Within the Ming and Qing Dynasties of China, there was a lot of cross dressing and transgender practices occurring both onstage and in everyday life. Within the theatre, elite men were intrigued by it. They would role-play, organize their own troupes, write and perform theatrical pieces.
Many of early modern China's stories reflected cross-dressing and living the life of a different gender for a short period of time, mainly featuring the cross-dressers as virtuous, like Mulan. Li Yu , a writer and entrepreneur, featured the gendering of bodies to be dependent upon men's desires and operated by a system of gender dimorphism, assumed by social boundaries of the time.
