In the ancient Chinese imperial court there were men, women, and eunuchs. The ancient world had many eunuchs, not only China, and luckily it is a custom that no people continue. What is a eunuch? A eunuch is, in short, a castrated man.
Castration, that is, removal of male genitalia, It could be partial or total, the total being the removal of the penis and the testicles and the partial the disabling of the latter either by cutting or by blows. A eunuch is not a woman but neither is he a man, so we are facing a new gender that therefore in traditional Chinese society was assigned a different treatment.
Chinese society, like the others that used male castration, had the objective of generating a social group, the eunuchs, whose objective was to the care of his wives and concubines. In the case of China in particular the eunuchs they were employees of the Imperial Palace and therefore they lived in the most important place of all. At first they came out of the hosts of thieves and criminals, but as the empire and its bureaucracy grew, the number of Chinese eunuchs also grew and they had to be found in other places, such as the poorest villages.
How did a man get castrated? If the man was a minor, the authorization had to be given by the family and if he was an adult he would decide for himself to go to the barber-surgeon and allow himself to be castrated with skill and speed, but with pain. With luck, after the castration the new eunuch managed to urinate and then the operation was a success, otherwise he died in agony.
The custom of castration made the genitals be kept if the eunuch climbed positions in the palace he had to show his spoils. History remembers them as a large and highly influential group in the Chinese imperial court. Very influential. But disappeared with the fall of the empire, the Civil War and the formation of the socialist state.