北雁云依

When considering the issue of domestic violence, we often attribute the responsibility solely to the abuser within the family, while neglecting a responsible entity—the government.

For transgender individuals living in China, domestic violence is a very typical experience. Dong Zhimin's ability to turn transgender women into "iron chain trans women" is a clear example of this. In the novel "Love Tale - The Nonexistent Summer," the transgender female protagonist Su Banxia was physically abused by her father for wearing a skirt, and later sent to the "Zhang Yu Academy" for "reversal" after her medication was discovered. Su Banxia's experience is clearly based on the typical experiences of transgender women in China, which is why "Love Tale" has become a phenomenon among Chinese transgender women.

However, in general, the domestic violence experienced by transgender individuals in China is just a microcosm of the widespread family violence in China. Whether it is intergenerational violence or violence between spouses, it can be traced back to a common foundation: "it is difficult for an upright official to settle family affairs." In a well-known case, a man dragged a stranger on the street and claimed to be having a lover's quarrel, and most passersby simply stood by and watched. Similarly, China has yet to define "marital rape," thus failing to achieve the concept of "Rape is Rape." Once violence is carried out under the guise of "family conflicts," it can be seen that in the Chinese mindset, the "family" is a place beyond the reach of the law. Such outdated ideas are deeply ingrained, making it a long and arduous task to transform the inherent beliefs of the Chinese people... right?

If you believe in the stories of "brothers turning against each other" and "fathers and sons fighting" that occurred during the Cultural Revolution¹, then it is obvious that even the Chinese government of the "first thirty years" without the achievements of urbanization, informatization, and extensive industrialization, and with administrative capabilities far from comparable to the present, still had enough ability to implement its ideas into clans and families, which were previously considered lawless areas. If you think that the above stories only happened in cities, it is undeniable that governments in developed countries with smaller scales than China also have the ability to implement their ideas (particularly in the form of laws) into families. This is fully reflected in their issues of domestic violence: the frequency of governments depriving parents who commit domestic violence of custody rights is higher than in China, and their definition of "marital rape" is far more proactive. And we can also say that "neighbors and teachers actively report signs of domestic violence, instead of turning a blind eye to children's cries and bruises like in China"² is the result of the government's active response to domestic violence, rather than the cause.

What is responsibility? When we say that an entity needs to take responsibility for a phenomenon, it means that it has the ability to change it but has not taken action. It is obvious that the Chinese government has the ability to prevent domestic violence but has not put in enough effort to do so. It needs to take responsibility for the occurrence of domestic violence in China.