Performing Femininity at the Margins: Identity, Stigma, and Informal Kinship Among Cross-Dressing and Transgender Sex Workers in Urban China

Cross-dressing (CD) and transgender sex workers in mainland China remain largely overlooked. Based on interviews with 25 such workers in Chongqing, this study examines pathways into sex work, femininity performance, stigma management, and support through the concept of gendered survival labor. Findings show entry is shaped by economic precarity, migration, family conflict, and gender affirmation; femininity operates as labor; stigma is managed through concealment, selective disclosure, and spatial separation. Informal “sisterhood” networks provide support alongside conflict and competition. The study develops situational gender negotiation and nested stigma management, extending sociological understandings of gender, labor, and constrained livelihoods in urban China.