T / P / H (Chinese Lesbian Slang)

T, P, and H are insider labels in Chinese lesbian (lala) communities. T comes from the English tomboy and describes women whose style reads androgynous or dashing; P — also written 婆 (po) — describes the femme side; H stands for half, i.e. bufen (不分, “no leaning”), neither one nor the other. The scheme is generally traced to Taiwan’s lala scene, from which it spread across the Chinese-speaking world. Rough Western analogues are butch/femme, though the systems evolved separately and don’t map perfectly.

Like every community label, T/P/H is a tool, not a cage: useful for quickly signaling style and preference, entirely optional to adopt. Many younger lala identify as bufen or skip labels altogether. Nor is the scheme an imitation of heterosexual marriage — a relationship between two women needs no one to “play the man”; presentation and relationship dynamics are separate things.

Register note: in-community vernacular. In writing or education, “lesbian” or lala is the register-appropriate choice.

Common misuse: equating T with wanting to be a man — androgynous presentation is gender expression, being transgender is gender identity, and they are different questions (see gender basics); and assigning people roles or insisting “a T should date a P” — who dates whom, and how, is for the people involved to decide.