A blog of Li Yinhe, China's top sexologist, became viral on Saturday on Weibo, the country's leading microblogging site. In 24 hours, it was read over 200,000 times and got almost 3 million hits.

The blog proved to be an interesting read to Chinese who are still wary about non-heterosexual relationship because Li - a widow of author Wang Xiaobo - shared that for the past 17 years, her partner is a transgender man and they even have an adopted child, CBC reports.

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Wang died in 1997 after a heart attack and she eventually met a taxi driver who was born a woman but through surgery is now a male. But she clarified that she is not a lesbian because her partner "is only able to fall in love with heterosexual women, not homosexual women."

Li kept quiet about her private life but decided to explain her circumstances after a commentator named Liu Chang'an attacked not only her life but also questioned her expertise because of her lifestyle. Liu said that Li was a lesbian and has been living for many years with a "tomboy."

Liu called their life an abnormal family environment and pitied the adopted boy because he allegedly could not socialize with boys his age and even attend school because of their situation.

Li said she needed to set the record straight through her blog because "someone has made such vicious allegations."

She described her partner, quoted by CBC, as "an angel sent by God to save me from the bitter sea of losing Xiaobo."

Her viral blog was met with mixed reactions; some readers supported her, while others derided the retired sociologist from the China Academy of Social Sciences.

Ying Xin, the executive director of the Beijing Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Center, said her explanation is a big help to Chinese transgendered people.

Members of the LGBT community in China, after all, are a misunderstood lot, with some still believing that using electric shock and hypnotism on a gay man could make him straight, which led to the Friday landmark ruling by court that favored the man who sued a clinic in Chongqing for the use of electroshock treatment on him. 

But Li stressed that in dispelling the impression that she is not a homosexual, "By no means do I think that I'm more normal than homosexuals or morally more superior than them." She added that heterosexuals and homosexuals are equally human and normal.

TagsLi Yinhe, Wang Xiaobo, China LGBT, Chinese Author Wang Xiaobo’s Widow, Li Yinhe, Says She Lives with Transgender