I'm writing this article to report on an astonishing fact that I recently discovered in my research.

First of all, I always disagreed with how 酉 Earthly Branch, the eighth Earthly Branch in the Chinese zodiac, is usually translated on those paper place mats that you get at Chinese restaurants. I disagreed with it aesthetically because I don't think it's very nice to tell someone that their zodiac sign is "Cock." I also disagreed with it because I always thought of the Phoenix as a very feminine symbol.

Now, 酉 Earthly Branch is usually translated to be Rooster or Cock. I assumed that they chose this translation for the paper place mat at restaurants because you might be eating chicken on the place mat. If the place mat told you that your zodiac sign is the chicken that you're eating, that might feel awkward.

The Chinese word for chicken is 鸡. The word for phoenix is 凤. These two words do get mixed up sometimes, especially on menus. The name for chicken feet at dim sum, for example, is 凤爪 (phoenix feet) and not 鸡爪 (chicken feet) even though everybody knows that the animal whose feet you are eating is definitely a chicken.

There is some blurring between the mythological phoenix and the very real chicken. For example, take a look at this painting that someone made of a phoenix:



That's a chicken, no?

In bazi, 酉 Earthly Branch (Rooster) and 辰 Earthly Branch (Dragon) form what is called a 六合 is Six Harmonies pairing. These two animals are strongly associated with one another.

If you know anything about Chinese culture, you'll know that the dragon and the phoenix are a classical pair that symbolizes a married couple. You see the two creatures entwined on marital blankets all the time. Dragon is blatantly masculine because the word for dragon, 龙, is slang for penis. The word for chicken (鸡), on the other hand, is actually quite feminine because it is slang for female sex worker. The slang word for male sex worker is duck, not chicken.

On Threads, I argued that 酉 Earthly Branch should be translated to Phoenix. I argued that 酉 Earthly Branch could also be translated to Hen if you're going to pick a gender or just Chicken or you prefer to be gender neutral.

But, then, someone named Wordwitcher pointed something out to me: the bird that you see when you see any artistic depictions of a phoenix is a colorful chicken. It's not a dull colored chicken that blends into its surroundings. It's a very flamboyant chicken with a long and beautiful tail. This chicken can only be a male chicken. A cock or a rooster.



I realized right then and there that my assumptions about traditional Chinese culture and heteronormativity had erased something that was right there all along: the dragon and the phoenix are a classic couple in Chinese culture but both animals are obviously male. The phoenix is a flamboyant chicken and we know that male chickens are flamboyant. The dragon is a penis because, the dragon is a river which releases a strong current of vitality every morning or spring.

In other words, the Cock is a Cock. It's also married to another cock.

After I realized that the dragon and the phoenix are canonically a gay couple, my mind drifted to the other mythological creature in the room: Xuanwu.



Now, Xuanwu is typically seen as one creature but it's actually two. It's a snake sexually penetrating or fucking a turtle with its phallic body. The turtle is considered a very yin creature because the turtle is a creature that hides within its own shell (yin is about what is hidden). Seeing all this, you might be wondering why the snake is fucking the turtle.

It's actually because, in the past, Chinese people actually thought that all turtles were female. That's just a piece of pseudoscience that a lot of people believed for whatever reason. Everybody thought that turtles and tortoises were all female and that they needed to mate with a snake to procreate. That's why turtle is still the slang word for cuckold, because people thought that turtles mate with another species to give birth.

So, according to the people who were thinking with and using Xuanwu, the turtle part is definitely female.

Okay. Now let's look at the snake's gender. I don't care what you say but—when was the last time you ever heard of a snake in Chinese mythology that was a cisgendered male? The white snake or 白素貞 and the green snake or 青青 are both women who are "close confidants" or "sworn sisters." Fuxi, who is the male version of Nüwa (who is the female version of Fuxi), is masculine but he's not a separate entity from Nüwa. Fuxi/Nüwa is better described as one person who is half man, half woman, and half snake.

The snake's gender is more ambiguous than the turtle's. In Chinese myths, snakes are often feminine but they can also be people of ambiguous gender. They are seductresses, pure of heart, and definitely often in romantic relationships with other feminine or gender ambiguous snakes in addition to mortal men. Snakes are shapeshifters but usually somewhat feminine.

That changes the reading of Xuanwu, the creature that is a snake fucking a turtle—right? These two have become one creature because they are a lesbian couple that merged.

If you take a look at the four mythological creatures that express the cardinal directions in Chinese cosmology, tell me what you see.



I'm seeing two gay men, a merged lesbian couple, and the cat that all of them are raising together. Just a really simple and elegant illustration of all of the elements of a basic society or community. The gay couple are sitting next to each other. The lesbians have merged which gives the cat, who obviously needs its own place, a cardinal direction.