TBG and Po: Discourses on authentic desire in 2010s lesbian subcultures in Hong Kong, China, and Taiwan

Abstract

Across lesbian communities in Hong Kong, China (PRC), and Taiwan (ROC), a group of masculine-presenting, assigned-female-at-birth individuals have come to be known as tomboys. Their partners are often normatively-feminine women who are labeled po (wife) in the mandarin-speaking China and Taiwan and TBG (“TomBoy’s Girl”) in the former colony. Throughout the late twentieth century and the 2000s, po and TBG had been conceptualized as latent heterosexuals whose heterosexuality was “falsely” displaced onto the tomboy lover, and it was also widely suspected that these women would eventually return to their “true” heteronormative lives. On the other hand, the 2010s era also sees queer women in the three Chinese societies increasingly leaning towards doing away with tomboy, TBG, po and all kinds of sexual identity categories altogether. How has the decades-old image of the “falsely-desiring” TBG/po evolved in this context of postidentity politics? In what ways is TBG/po desire imagined to be “real” or “fake”? And how has the true/false framework itself been transformed by postcategory yearnings? This article traces the shifting discourses on “authentic desire” ascribed to TBG and po women by first examining two media texts popular in the three lesbian circles—Yes or No and Girls Love—and second by looking into how women in these circles interpret these texts.

Keywords:

• TBG
• Po
• tomboy
• ueer femininity
• ueer Asia
• Chinese
• esbian
• dentity
• ubjectivity
• Hong Kong
• China
• Taiwan

Notes

1 TBG is the abbreviation of “TomBoy’s Girl” and po is the mandarin word for “wife”. Both terms refer to the feminine partner in a same-sex relationship.

2 It should be noted that the texts are not always discussed favorably—Respondents often noted that they would watch any Asian lesbian-themed media because such representations remain rare.

3 I acknowledge that the term “homosexual” emerged out of a history of pathologization in both Western and Chinese contexts. This article argues that contemporary Chinese discourses on sexuality are directly linked to early-twentieth Chinese translation of pathology, and therefore uses the term “homosexual/ity” to address the historical model of sexuality.

4 Though the words TBG and po never appeared in Yes or No, the character Kim was described as a tomboy in the film. Thai society uses the term tomboy (often abbreviated to tom) to describe masculine-presenting female-assigned individuals who desire normatively-feminine women, in a way that is noticeably similar to the Chinese contexts (Sinnott, 2004). Because of this, the character who desires Kim—Pie—was read as a TBG/po.

5 Taiwanese television films The Maidens’ Dance (2002) and Voice of Waves (2002).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Carman K. M. Fung

Carman K. M. Fung is a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne. She has previously received a MPhil in multidisciplinary gender studies at the University of Cambridge and a BA in comparative literature at the University of Hong Kong.