Chen Lili (model)
Chinese singer, model, and actress
Chen Lili (or Lili Chen, simplified Chinese: 陈莉莉; traditional Chinese: 陳莉莉; pinyin: Chén Lìlì; born February 1980) is a transgender singer, model, and actress from the People's Republic of China. She became widely known in 2004 when she competed and attempted to compete in beauty pageants as a woman.
She was born into a peasant family at Yilong County, Nanchong City of Sichuan Province. She received sex reassignment surgery in Qingdao in November 2003. On February 11, 2004, she was issued an ID card establishing her female identity by the Public Security Bureau of Nanchong.
Chen attempted to compete in the Miss Universe contest in early 2004. Although the Miss Universe China committee initially announced, on February 23, that she would be allowed to participate, on February 25, they retracted their original decision, stating that she would not be allowed to participate because she was not a "natural female." Despite being barred from the competition, Chen was nonetheless given the opportunity to perform at the event. It is believed that Lili is the first transsexual woman to attempt to compete in the Miss Universe contest.
In late 2004, Chen competed in China's first Miss Artificial Beauty pageant. She finished as second runner up.
The public source identifies “Chen Lili (model)” as chinese singer, model, and actress. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Chen, Lili and model.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 27, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q5090842. VIAF identifies the subject as 93152864180704822012. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1980, 2004 and 2003.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Chen Lili (model)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.