Luncheon Series: The Geobiopolitics of Trans Medicine: Kinship and Difference-Making Under China-U.S. Geopolitics 11.06.2025

CAS Luncheon Series
Thursday, November 6, 12:30pm
Denison Arts and Sciences Building, room 146

To access prescriptions of gender-affirming hormone therapy in China, trans adults need to provide proof of parental acknowledgement (zhiqing), a requirement that had not existed before late 2021 but was made through transnational geopolitical encounters. Drawing on fieldwork in one of China’s major trans medical care clinics, I offer the concept of geobiopolitics to capture how trans medicine has been recalibrated under China-US geopolitics. Relying on parental acknowledgement, the geobiopolitics of trans medicine functions through both biopolitical control of trans bodies and geopolitical enactment of medical response-ability amid rising tensions between China and the US. Balancing between delivering trans medical care and preserving its legitimacy, physicians’ reliance on parental acknowledgment risked reifying trans in China and China itself as “family-centered,” “local,” and thus exterior to “Western modernity.”

Jianmin Shao is Assistant Professor of Women and Gender Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. Professor Shao received their Ph.D. in Psychology with a Graduate Emphasis in Feminist Studies and a specialization in Anthropologies of Medicine, Science, and Technology from the University of California, Irvine. Trained as a feminist anthropologist and psychologist, they conduct research in the areas of Queer and Trans Health, Feminist Anthropology, Medical Anthropology, and China Studies.