Who is LGBT icon Jin Xing, China's first transgender celebrity?
The world renowned dancer was the first and still only public figure to undergo gender reassignment surgery in China in 1995
Fifty one year-old Jin Xing is a pioneering artist.
She is an internationally acclaimed, award-winning contemporary dancer, founder and director of the Shanghai Jin Xing Dance Theatre – China’s first independent dance company – and a celebrated television host of several hit shows in mainland China, such Venus Hits Mars, The Jin Xing Show and Chinese Dating.
She is also the first public figure to undergo sex reassignment surgery (SRS) in China.
Born in 1967 in Shenyang, Jin has been passionate about dancing since her early childhood.
Dance and the arts were seen as propaganda tools in China at the time and Jin’s gift was so apparent that by the age of nine, she was accepted into the People's Liberation Army to train in the dance troupe.
Jin graduated in 1984 and was granted the rank of colonel.
It was at this time, when she won her first national dance championship and was crowned the number one male dancer in the country, that she became aware of a dance scholarship in New York that was funded by a cultural exchange programme.
