writer & thinker
A little while ago I spoke to New York Times contributor Brian Ng about airlines failing nonbinary passengers in their booking systems while pursuing the pink dollar. Read or listen to the story below.
Big thanks to Brian for pursuing this story, and shoutout also to photographer Asanka Brendon Ratnayake – I am so awkward in front of a camera but he really put me at ease and we had a nice chat about NYT Australia and journalism in Asia, Australia and the US.
In urban, western settings, I’m usually read as a woman, albeit a queer sort. In the country, I more often pass as a boy. There’s a tangy pleasure in that, in being called sir and shuaige and brother.
As a genderfluid, nonbinary person, being clocked as one thing in the morning and another in the afternoon feels like the closest I will get to recognition. This havoc can be a delight, but also a complication. A liability.
Jinghua Qian, Genderfeels in nomads’ land, Them
My essay on traveling through Central Asia as a nonbinary person is out today in Them, edited by none other than Meredith Talusan, a writer I’ve been following for years. I’m so thrilled with this one – go read it now!
‘Between Australia’s hunger to spin its immigrant communities into a simple, palatable narrative, and the PRC government’s mission to absorb the accomplishments of overseas Chinese into its own national history, the richness and complexity of Chinese Australian life can get lost.’
Read my feature on Chinatown and Melbourne’s Chinese communities in Culture Trip.
Jinghua Qian 