Thai culture has a long history of being inclusive of gender roles outside of “man” and “woman.” Yet while many tourists may gain some exposure to Thailand’s transgender community through cabaret shows or LGBTQ nightlife, one Thai transgender woman has made it her mission to provide tourists a much deeper education about her community’s history. Recently, while in Bangkok, I attended a two-hour talk about her life with five other tourists as part of an AirBnB experience.
A Transgender Tour Guide to 50 Years of Thai History
The host of the AirBnB experience asked I keep her name and her employer’s name confidential, so in this post I’ll refer to her as Jip. Jip is now a cabaret performer at one of Thailand’s most prestigious cabarets, and identifies as kathoey and transgender. However, she actually spent most of her career as a computer programmer, where she kept her identity secret for fear of discrimination until coming out in 2002. During the talk, she explained her own story living in the 1970s through today, and brought pictures to illustrate important moments in Thai transgender history during her life.
But before I share some of her story, it’s important to explain the term, “kathoey,” also often loosely translated to “ladyboy.” Kathoey is a Thai gender/sexual identity with thousands of years of history, going back to Buddhist origin myths in the Tipiṭaka written in the 1st Century BC. For much of Buddhist and Thai history, kathoey has been seen as a “third gender” existing outside of man/woman, and as part of the natural cycle of rebirth. Many kathoeys live as effeminate/homosexual men, while others express their gender in a way closer to cisgender women, sometimes referred to as “sao bra phedt song,” i.e. “second type of women.” But as Jip’s story illustrates, in the last 20 years some kathoeys, inspired by the global transgender movement, have begun understanding themselves not as a gender category outside of womanhood, but as women. Jip both identifies with being part of Thai kathoey culture, and identifies as a transgender woman.
The 1970s: Cabarets, Student Activism, and Anti-Communism
When I asked Jip how understanding of gender in Thailand has changed throughout her life, she answered that “forty-five years ago, when I was a child, we had only three genders, man, woman, and kathoey.” She knew of other kathoeys in her hometown, “they were always the black sheep of the family, easy to spot.” And in Jip’s grade school, kathoeys were boisterous, outgoing, and often class clowns and troublemakers. Jip, on the other hand, was a quiet child that was used to keeping her own company as an only-child.
Jip has always been inspired by cabaret shows, and the 1970s saw the founding of the famous Tiffany’s Show Cabaret, founded in 1974. Tiffany’s and other cabaret shows saw kathoeys combine dance routines from traditional village festivals and court performances with Western influences including drag, disco, and movies.
The growth of the Thai service and tourist industries in the 1970s during and after the Vietnam War led to new employment opportunities for kathoeys. Many became performers at cabarets, worked at bars and nightclubs, and became part of a growing sex work industry catering to a foreign interest in kathoey liaisons. It’s in this period that many kathoeys began using the term “ladyboy” to market businesses and services to foreigners.
At the same time, the early 1970s saw a growing political awareness of LGBT rights and gender equality, especially on college campuses. Thailand birthed its own genre of protest music known as “Songs for Life,” popularized by the band Caravan who were made up of student activists. Jip recounted that she felt safe growing her hair long without being outed as kathoey because many assumed that she was an artist or into rock music.
However, the 1976 massacre of students at Thammasat University by right-wing forces ushered in a reactionary period in Thai politics. The Thai government cracked down on civil rights advocates in the name of anti-Communism, driving many into hiding. It was this period, which lasted until democratic elections resumed in 1988, in which Jip spent her formative teenage years.
The 1980s: The Tragic Kathoey in Cinema and Employment Discrimination
Jip explained that she felt a real lack of relatable kathoey role models when growing up. TV and cinema were largely apolitical towards civil rights, portraying kathoeys as either buffoons or tragic, pathetic victims of unrequited love. The popular 1985 Thai movie “The Last Song” features a kathoey cabaret performer named Somying who, at the end of the film, commits suicide when her lover leaves her for a cisgender woman.
While Thailand’s economy began to rapidly grow in the mid-1980s, few corporations or business schools would accept out kathoeys. Jip, who had a strong interest in the growing technology sector, enrolled in a Polytechnic University at age 16, but remained in the closet.
After enrolling in University, Jip’s life changed. It was the first time she met a kathoey friend she could relate to, one like herself who was quiet and thoughtful. Later she met another kathoey who had aspirations to become a politician, a goal which her friend later achieved. Jip gained the confidence to begin hanging out in more feminine social circles, and began trying out cheerleading, singing, and dancing, partially inspired by her love of cabaret shows. However, she did most of this in secret, and only dressed as a woman at night.
The 1990s: Computers and the Kathoey Volleyball Team That Shook Thailand
Jip was fortunate to graduate from Polytechnical school and enter the field of programming as computing began to take off in 1990s. While she enjoyed significant career success, she was afraid of discrimination if she was openly kathoey. She described how employers regarded kathoeys as troublemakers and sex workers, and at one job she recalls a kathoey accountant who had been asked by her boss if she was a “stripper.”
In 1996, a Thai volleyball team comprised of kathoeys known as the “Iron Ladies” shocked the country by winning the men’s national championship. A few years later, their story was immortalized in a film also called the “Iron Ladies,” which was the highest-ever grossing Thai film at the time. For many kathoeys like Jip, this was the first time they had positive kathoey role models in the national spotlight. Jip actually named her AirBnB experience “The Iron Lady” in a tribute to the team, and brought pictures from the movie.
Iron Ladies, while a comedy that portrayed several of its kathoey characters as clownish and overly flirtatious, was nevertheless a stark departure from any previous LGBT film. Its story of a team coming together to overcome discrimination and prove their worth resonated with Thai cultural values of community struggle. The relationship between the character Pia, a kathoey cabaret performer, and her (former) boyfriend who leaves her for a cisgender woman, initially follows a well-established plotline, but with a twist. Instead of Pia pining for him, she is focused on her career, whereas he follows her around to her volleyball games. Ultimately it is Pia who demands that he move on and tells him they can’t be more than friends.
New Understandings of “Transgender” at the turn of the 21ST Century
It was around 2000 that Jip began researching gender-affirming surgeries including vaginoplasty, as well as began taking female hormones. The first vaginoplasty for a transgender woman had been performed in Thailand in 1972, and many clinics offering it were well-established by the 1980s and 1990s. However, unlike Jip, most kathoeys at the time and still today didn’t necessarily feel the need for surgeries beyond outward changes to physical appearance such as facial surgeries and breast augmentation.
This was at odds with the Western medical model of transsexuality, where vaginoplasty was typically seen as the ultimate goal of treatment for people with a psychiatric diagnosis of “gender dysphoria.” To access this treatment, Western transgender people had to also prove they could live “full time” as a woman in accordance with the Standards of Care set by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health(WPATH).
But in Thailand, kathoeys had long been going to surgeons for gender-affirming procedures without a requirement to “prove” that they were women. One widely-acclaimed surgeon in the field, Dr. Preecha Tiewtranon, stated in a 2006 that “patients in Thailand see the plastic surgeon first, not the psychiatrist, because to them they are normal people.”
However, what was starting to change in the late 1990s and early 2000s was a growing cultural exchange between Western transgender women and kathoeys, both thanks to new internet transgender communities, and a sudden flood of transgender women coming to Thailand for surgery. This cultural exchange inspired certain kathoeys to see themselves as more than just a “third gender,” forever outside of the category of “woman,” to seeing themselves as “transgender” women. Surgery to them wasn’t just about changing aesthetic appearance, for many they felt that surgery would help them become at peace with their bodies and live as the woman they were always meant to be.
I spoke to Jip largely through a translator, and since Thai has many unique words to refer to gender, terminology around gender identity can be difficult to communicate across languages. The term “phedt” is particularly problematic, because it combines the concepts of gender and sex. But one word that her translator used to distinguish how Jip thought about her gender identity was “phuu-ying plang phedt,” which translates roughly as “woman who changes gender/sex.” Another term, “khon khaam phedt,” credited to transgender activist Prempreeda Pramoj Na Ayutthaya, was coined in the early 2000s to be an inclusive term for all transgender people. She intended it to be translated to “a person who goes beyond gender.”
Growing visibility and acceptance in the early 2000s
In 2002, Jip left her job in programming to begin living openly as a transgender woman. She immediately jumped into the deep end, auditioning for the famous Miss Tiffany’s Universe transgender beauty pageant. While Jip didn’t expect to win, she still came in at 30th place out of 100 women. This launched her into a new social group, meeting other transgender women from different careers, including a police officer, a teacher, and a performer at a prestigious cabaret show.
Miss Tiffany Universe, founded in 1984 by Tiffany’s Show Cabaret, is well-loved throughout Thailand, and winning the pageant often leads to lucrative sponsorship deals and a chance to launch a new career. At her talk, Jip brought with her photos of Treechada Petcharat, aka Poyd, who won both the 2004 Miss Tiffany’s Universe, as well as the worldwide 2004 Miss International Queen transgender pageant. Poyd has since become a well-known actress and Instagram star who has used her platform to advocate for transgender rights through blogs, interviews, and even a TED X Talk.
Inspired by the friends Jip made through the pageant community, Jip gained the confidence to undergo the surgeries she had long desired and saved for during her career in programming. She also auditioned for and was accepted as a dancer at a prestigious cabaret show, where she still works now.
At this point, it was impossible for Jip to hide from her parents that she was transgender. While her mother had always suspected and was more accepting, it was harder for her father to accept her because his expectation was that as his male heir, she would carry on the Chinese family name and have children. But because Jip and her family were Buddhists, and because Jip had always shown deference to her familial and spiritual obligations, it was easier for her to gain acceptance. As Jip explained, “since we are a Buddhist country, it is not about who you were born as, it is about what you do. Because we believe in karma, if a kid is kathoey, and they are doing good things, parents believe things will work out well for them.” Although some parents don’t accept their kids, Jip believes that most of Thai society feels that rejecting transgender/kathoey children is wrong.
2007 to 2019: Transgender Resistance Through TV and Cinema
One final item Jip brought with her to the talk was a promotional image for Bang TV, an LGBTQ channel that broadcast from 2008 to 2015, as an example of growing visibility for transgender people. In 2004, the Thai Ministry of Culture cracked down on LGBTQ content on TV, reacting to a social paranoia that growing visibility for LGBTQ people was leading to more people “turning” LGBTQ. But in 2007, Thai filmmakers successfully pressured the government to replace censorship laws dating back to the 1930s that had severely limited portrayals of LGBTQ people. This opened a new space for transgender people on TV, including on Bang TV. Tiffany’s Show also started their own reality show in 2017, “The Reality,” about the beauty pageant scene. Drag Race Thailand launched in 2018 with a plethora of transgender contestants.
However, censorship of LGBTQ content has continued, and has likewise inspired a new generation of political engagement. After Thai kathoey/transgender director Tanwarin Sukkhapisit‘s LGBTQ film “Insects in the Backyard” was banned from being screened in Thailand in 2010, Tanwarin waged a successful five year battle for the right to show the critically-acclaimed film in her home country. But she didn’t stop there. In 2019 Tanwarin became the first transgender woman elected to Parliament, based on a platform of promising to end unfair censorship laws and fight for LGBTQ rights.
Hopes for the Future
While Jip hopes that one day there will be more career opportunities for out transgender women and kathoeys like herself, she is happy with her current work as a cabaret performer. It allows her to be surrounded by supportive community and she finds it rewarding.
Jip also hopes that more of society will understand that transgender women are just as deserving of love and recognition of their relationships as cisgender women. While she has been with her boyfriend for ten years, they cannot marry because she cannot change the “male” gender marker on her identity documents, and same-sex marriage is not legal. She also hopes Thai law can change so she can legally adopt children, as both her and her parents hope to add a next generation to their family.
If you’re ever in Bangkok, I hope you’ll support Jip by booking her AirBnB experience. You’ll learn far more than I’ve been able to share, and be able to see her perform that evening. And if you enjoyed reading this post, I hope you’ll also consider supporting the TransWorldView blog on Patreon! By supporting the blog on Patreon for as little as $1 a month, you’ll get access to exclusive bonus content and the ability to contribute your own ideas to the blog. Thank you.
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