California State University Tanci fiction has been recognized as the most significant literary achievement by women in the Qing Dynasty. Although transvestism appears in 47 out of 200 tanci tales recorded by Tan Zhengbi, it reveals a feminist intention only in women's tanci. The paper also explores the motive and subconsciousness of lesbian desire in woman's tanci. It discusses why they not only imagine the possibility of a woman marrying a woman, but also, through examples such as a female couple retreating to deep mountains to live happily ever after, affirm a type of love purer and more sincere than normal marital love. It argues that Cheng Huiying's tanci of male homosexual love also disguises a lesbian desire-the desire for love or friendship that can transcend gender and sexual differences.
Most women tanci writers have been criticized for supporting feudal polygamy.
But this paper demonstrates that polygamy in most women's tanci has been revised into a utopian type of polygamy. In their polygamous system, women are the center. Either through a woman, disguised as a man, marrying women or by other female initiation, a group of sisters string together, and finally get married to one man, usually feminized. This feminist scheme is most clear in Jifang yuan written by a peasant woman, who imagines twelve girls of tough experiences get married to one man and happily settle down in Jifang Yuan-the Garden of Eves one may say. This fantasized utopian polygamy helps overcome the female phobia, as revealed in Wun yuan, for losing sisterhood after marriage.