Transgender Fantasies in Real-Person “Shipping”: Case Studies of CP Fen and Male Idol Couple Fandoms on Weibo and Douban

Boys’ Love (BL), also known as Yaoi, is a genre focuses on the homoromantic relationships between male characters. Shihomi Sakakibara, a Japanese Yaoi novelist had suggested that Yaoi fans exhibit characteristics of “Gender Identity Disorder”, as classified in the DSM-IV, now referred to as “Gender Dysphoria” in the DSM-5-TR. She posited that Yaoi fans are mentally female-to-male (FTM) transgender. In relation to Yaoi fans, CP fen (couple shippers) exist within the showbiz in mainland China and share similarities with Yaoi fans. However, they are more eager on the real-person pairings, and particularly devoted to specific male couples they love. These significant numbers of mainly fangirls are captivated by the perceived “real love” between male idols, fervently hoping that these relationships are genuine rather than mere performances. In this regard, Chinese social media platforms like Weibo and Douban are two major hubs for CP fen to congregate and share the information and “evidence” to support their belief that their admired male couple’s relationships are authentic. Beyond the psychological and pathological perspective and the fictional Yaoi scenario suggested by Shihomi Sakakibara, this article employs Judith Butler’s theory of fantasy and the phantasmatic to conduct a netnography on the CP fen fandoms in Weibo and Douban. The prominent male idol couples, LianLiZhi and WenXuan, are the two cases to investigate the imagined transgender spaces created by CP fen, and how they temporarily project themselves into the roles of real-person males, facilitated by the phantasmatic space generated by the representations of their fancied couples.