Transgender Chinese Woman Accuses Flight Attendant of Using Wrong Pronoun

A transgender Chinese woman has accused a flight attendant of treating her unfairly after refusing to use her proper pronouns. The 17-year-old woman is a frequent flyer on Juneyao Airlines and claims to have reached "gold card" status in only two months.

The incident happened when the woman boarded a flight with Juneyao Airlines that departed from Shanghai. The airline operates domestic and international flights from its two main hubs in the city: Pudong International Airport (PVG) and Hongqiao International Airport (SHA).

The woman got angry when she noticed that the flight attendants in business class were addressing the passengers with their surnames and appropriate pronouns. After not being referred to by the proper pronoun, she asked to speak with the chief flight attendant.

The woman said, "I have taken flights with so many airlines and everyone addressed me as 'Ms' or 'Miss Li'. Flight attendants in the service industry should be observant. Don't you think so?"

The chief flight attendant responded to her feedback by saying that she was "afraid of offending" the transgender woman.
 

Even though the passenger accepted the flight attendant's apology, she later posted a video of the interaction on her social media account, which has more than 130,000 followers.

In the video, the woman said, "If they don't take care of our solution properly, then it is the fault of their airline. I just wanted to temporarily alleviate my anger."

However, not everyone had sympathy for the woman. Some people noticed that she was the same woman who was detained by police in another incident earlier this year, in which she entered a women's bathroom by using a fake identification card.

The woman was accused of violating the privacy of other women, especially considering that she had not yet received gender reassignment surgery. Both incidents caused Weibo to suspend her account for participating in "malicious marketing practices".
 

Criticism of the woman has continued even though she was already suspended from social media. One person said, "She claimed to be generous and to have forgiven the flight attendant, but she continued to expose them online. The service industry is really tough."

Another person said, “The flight attendant definitely didn't know how to address her and that's why they didn't use a title. You can simply ask them to call you 'Miss' or 'Mr'. This blogger is overly sensitive.” A third person said, "This is just attention seeking. As long as she can be popular, whether it's good or bad, it doesn't matter to her."
 

China's LGBTQ community, which includes more than 70 million people, has been the target of numerous crackdowns in recent years.

In 2020, the Shanghai Pride event was abruptly canceled without the organizers giving a reason. Shanghai Pride was China's only major annual event that honored the country's LGBTQ community. The month-long celebration featured dance parties, athletic contests, art exhibitions, and many other activities. Thousands of LGBTQ people attended the annual event, which was first held in 2009.

In 2021, the WeChat accounts of LGBTQ student groups from major Chinese universities were suspended or even completely banned overnight.

It is widely believed that pressure from the government played a major role in both of these incidents.