Hi girls,

An article in today's papers about CD/TV/TSs in Thailand. It does give a sense of the real situation in Thailand.

By the way, a sister at trannyweb, Ms Chandra Tomei of Bangkok, told me that the term "ladyboy" is actually a polite description. "Sao pra-pet song" (ladyboy) literally translates as "the second-type girl".

The other term commonly used to describe girls like us, "kratoey", is derogatory... usually used to describe a man who acts like a woman, wears make-up, but not actually dressing up, like a gay queen... or tries to mimic a girl, and often in an exaggerated manner.

Hope that clears some misconceptions. (the following article doesn't differentiate between the two words and most non-Thai mixes up the two).

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Sunday December 4, 2005


Gay pride and prejudice

Thai Takes: By A. ASOHAN

WHEN working the wee-hours-of-the-morning shift at Asia News Network (www.asianewsnet.net), I have to walk through a deserted carpark to get to the office. There I once saw a bored security guard applying some rouge from a compact make-up kit.

Nothing worth reporting there, except that the security guard was male.

On the face of it, “alternate sexuality” seems such an ingrained aspect of Thai life that it doesn’t raise an eyelid. Sitcoms and game shows feature such characters. Nobody would complain if the head waiter at your official corporate function was blatantly transvestite.

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(caption for photo)
DARE TO BE DIFFERENT: Alternate sexuality seems such an ingrained aspect of Thai life that it doesn’t raise an eyelid. But looks can be deceiving. — Reuterspic
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They call them “ladyboys” here, or "katoey", from the Khmer word "toey", which means “to be different”. Volumes have been written about them, and tourist websites feature them as among the attractions.

In places like Pattaya, “ladyboy cabarets” are sellout shows attended not only by leering businessmen on their corporate weekend retreats, but also families. It’s all innocent fun, despite the sexual overtones.

Indeed, Thailand has got such a reputation for tolerance that earlier this year, Bangkok played host to an academic conference that discussed what it termed LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender, queer) issues, featuring more than 150 papers from researchers around the world.

They also discussed Thailand’s tolerance for LGBTQs: There is rarely any violence against gays and no obvious social hatred. There are no laws that discriminate against them, and the medical profession does not regard them as “mentally ill”. With Buddhism’s tolerant view, few religious folk would consider them sinners either.

Indeed, some of the scholars at Bangkok’s “Queer Conference” – as they themselves dubbed it – saw social pressure against homosexuality and transvestitism as being alien to most Asian cultures, citing examples such as the katoey, the hijras of India and the warias in Indonesia.

Author and researcher Richard Totman suggested that both Asian and Western scholars could take lessons from Asia’s past, newspapers reported.

“Why mimic yesterday’s West,” he asked, “when you can be informed, and lead tomorrow?”

But the outward tolerance can’t hide deeply seated prejudice. While they are free to indulge in their lifestyles in private, few Thai gays ever come out of the closet. There was even a TV debate over how parents can stop their children from “becoming gay”.

In June last year, the Culture Ministry issued a directive asking networks to reduce the portrayal of homosexuals and transvestites in their shows, citing a need to discourage homosexuality.

It, of course, drew an immediate backlash from social and gender activists, who accused the government of trying to marginalise LGBTQs from mainstream Thai life.

Surprisingly though, some LGBTQs themselves agreed with the ministry’s directive.

Researcher and cross-dresser Prempreeda Pramoj Na Ayutthaya said gays had been misrepresented and used as comic fodder on television and in movies for years.

In the absence of true depictions, less exposure might be better, he told a local newspaper.

Another concern is that the glitzy, glamorous lifestyle associated with katoeys is in fact contributing to the rise of transvestitism. There have been reports of pre-pubescent boys undergoing hormonal treatments to grow breasts, all in a bid to become famous and well-loved ladyboy stars.

“These are boys who haven’t even experienced or explored their male sexuality sufficiently to be able to reasonably reject it,” said one social commentator. “Yet they are willing to undergo this radical transformation.

“That’s not mere tolerance, but a social issue that needs to be examined in depth.”


A. Asohan is editor of the Asia News Network (www.asianewsnet.net) in Bangkok

Thanks Jennifer - very informative -

My pleasure, Mary.
cheers