China’s biggest up-and-coming boy band are — SURPRISE! — all girls

No, you’re not confused.

This is China’s most up-and-coming boyband, and they are five androgynous women.

As if we needed more proof that girls are better at everything, including things reserved specifically for males, Acrush, made up of five women mostly in their early twenties, will debut formally with a music video at the end of April, and fans everywhere are swooning.

Earlier this month Acrush was showcased at a Tencent music event called Husband Exhibition. “Husband” in this context refers to male musicians so attractive their female fans fantasize about marrying them. But what a majority of their fans were extremely shocked to find out, was they do not in fact identify as male.

While the band is certainly highlighting discussions of gender expression in the media, in choosing to remain relatively gender neutral in many situations, they’re doing something even more powerful.

But with progress comes backlash. The band refers to themselves as “handsome youths” — a gender neutral term — but fans continue to refer to them as husbands. They even receive love letters from excited female fans.

And, around 15 percent of Acrush’s Weibo followers are “anti-fans,” or people who follow them in an attempt to out them for “lying.” But it seems they’ve already “outed” themselves in being absolutely open to interviews and discussions abut their off-stage identity as women.

What’s important to point out is the band is not doing any of this for marketing purposes, or because they think it will bring in more followers. All members of the band can be tracked back as having dressed in an androgynous fashion since an extremely young age, and it’s more about themselves and their choice to present than anything.

Many of the members have also been wearing short hair since a young age, and recall being stopped when entering women’s bathrooms because people believed they were boys.

Acrush will avoid referring to themselves as “boys” or “girls” while performing, and will also refrain from disclosing their sexual orientations — they are proof there’s no reason to pigeonhole yourself into something when, instead, you could have it all.