SHORT REPORT

Transsexual emergence: gender variant identities in Thailand

Witchayanee Ocha*
Gender and Development Studies, Asian Institute of Technology, Pathumthani, Thailand
(Received 23 August 2011; nal version received 1 March 2012)
This paper aims to contribute to understanding of emergent gender/sexual identities in
Thailand. Thailand has become a popular destination for sex change operations by
providing the medical technology for a complete transformation, with relatively few
procedures and satisfactory results at a reasonable price. Data were gathered from 24
transsexual male-to-female sex workers working in Pattaya and Patpong, well-known
sex-tourism hot spots in Thailand. Findings suggest the emergence of new
understandings of gender/sexual identity. Sex-tourism/sex work signicantly illumi-
nates the process through which gender is contested and re-imagined. The coming
together of cultures in Thailands sex industry, coupled with advances in medical
technology, has resulted in the emergence of new concepts of gender.
Keywords: sexualities; sex reassignment surgery; transgender; sex tourism; Thailand
Introduction
Recent transgender scholarship (Roen 2006; Towle and Morgan 2006) has bemoaned the
shallow and reductive portrayal in the US media of gender-liminal people in non-Western
societies. Towle and Morgan (2006) note that Euro-American transgender activists
frequently invoke the ubiquity of non-Western third-gender people to prove transgender
universality and thereby bolster transgender legitimacy. In so doing, they conate third
gender with transgender when in fact they are not the same.
The Western term transgender assumes a gender binary people may change genders
but they have not historically been considered a third gender (Lorber 1996). In contrast, in
some cultures, a third-gender category has always existed alongside the categories of
men and women. The third gender is neither male nor female even though the persons
genitals may be readily classiable. Use of the term transgender in reference to those
cultures reduces three sexes to two. Further complicating the cross-cultural terrain is the
terminology of modern medical technology. People in the third-gender category are able
to change their bodies, but sex reassignment refers to changing sexes as understood in the
West semantically, three are again reduced to two.
The inherent problems of cross-cultural analysis are signicant and many. Language is
an expression of culture and is a reection of different forms of knowledge. Though
diverse, Thai identities will be explored in this paper. The author uses the terms
transgender and transsexual, even though they are inadequate for three-gender societies.
Transgender refers to anatomically male people who identify themselves as third-gender
ISSN 1369-1058 print/ISSN 1464-5351 online
q 2012 Taylor & Francis
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13691058.2012.672653
http://www.tandfonline.com
*Email: witchayaneeocha@gmail.com
Culture, Health & Sexuality
Vol. 14, No. 5, May 2012, 563575
people and live as women but who have not undergone sex reassignment surgery.
Becoming transsexual implies engagement with medical institutions to access the
hormonal and surgical technologies needed for embodying ones internal identity (Stryker
1994). In this study, the term transsexual refers to third-gender individuals who have
undergone complete male to female (MTF) anatomical transformation.
Homosexuality is not a well-recognised or often used category in popular Thai
discourse (Sinnott 2000, 425). Presently, there is no commonly accepted Thai equivalent
for the English term transpeople (Winter 2011, 252). In Thailand, the most common
word for transgender is kathoey. Originally used to describe hermaphrodites, this term was
also used to refer to female-bodied individuals who are perceived as masculine (FTM) as
well as any male contravening gender role expectations (homosexual and effeminate
males etc.) (Winter 2002, 14). However, the term kathoey later came to encompass
only MTF transgenders. This paper focuses on the gender/sexual identities of MTF
transgenders because they are the most prevalent in Thailands sex tourism industry.
Jackson (2011) has drawn attention to Bangkoks emergence as a central focus of
an expanding regional network linking gender variant communities in Hong Kong,
Singapore, Taiwan, Indonesia, the Philippines and other rapidly developing East and
Southeast Asiansocieties (inside cover). In Thailand, the sexsector is animportant source of
emergent sexualities and is also a productive environment for studying gender. Transsexual
MTF sex workers are the most visible faces of these diversied forms that are emerging and
that reect the Buddhist concept of anatta (non-self) and anicca (impermanence).
This paper suggests that the global sex industrys impact as a signicant source of new
sexual and gender expressions can contribute to an understanding of the more complex
concept of gender. I focus on two aspects of the identity question: (1) power, resistance
and self-image development through the sex industry and (2) bodies subjectivity and
embodiment before and after a sex change operation. Evidence from the eldwork
suggests that the sex industry is not only driving a uidity of sexuality among sex workers
but is one of the factors responsible for the creation of new gender/sexual identities. The
research shows that medical technology and the ability of sex workers to earn money by
using their transformed bodies in the sex industry permits a wide range of performance
and, consequently, a wide array of gender identities. Finally, it is concluded that the
coming together of cultures in Thailands sex industry, coupled with the advances in
medical technology in changing gender identity through surgery, has resulted in the
emergence of new concepts of gender.
Gender identity disorder
From a medical perspective, transgenderism is sometimes considered a gender identity
disorder (Tiewtranon and Chokrungvaranont 2004). It presents when there is strong
ongoing cross-gender identication, that is, a desire to live and be accepted as a member of
the opposite sex. Medical doctors believe that transgender people have persistent
discomfort with their natural anatomical sex and feel inappropriate in their gender roles.
These feelings are often accompanied by a wish to have hormonal treatment and surgery
that will make the body congruent with the self-image.
Sex reassignment surgery (SRS) to change the body to t the self-image was
established in 1975 in Thailand (Tiewtranon and Chokrungvaranont 2004). Aizura (2011)
has pointed out that Thailand is now known by many as one of the premier sites
worldwide to obtain vaginoplasty and other cosmetic surgeries; indeed, many surgeons
advertise Bangkok as the Mecca of transsexual body modication (144), while Winter
564 W. Ocha
(2004) says that, Thailand probably boasts one of the highest incidences of transgenders
worldwide. No one knows for sure how many transgenders there are, but the gures range
from 10,000 to 300,000. Even the lowest of these gures would put the incidence way
above Western countries (7). Although the exact numbers for the transgender population
are elusive, the estimated ratio of transgenders to straight men is 1:30,000 (Bunyanathee
and Piyyopornpanit 1999, 324). However, this paper suggests that these gures are a gross
underestimate. Presently, Thailand is a popular place for sex change operations not only
for Thais but also for foreigners, because there are many clinics that produce satisfactory
results and are less expensive than in the West (Totman 2003).
Thailand has a rich, indigenous history of complex patterns of sexuality and gender.
Historically, an intermediate category, the third sex/gender, kathoey; phet-thi-sam, has
been recognised for both males and females and has existed alongside normative masculine
and feminine identities (Jackson and Sullivan 2000, 3). The terms portray the MTF third
gender as either a subset of female or an entirely different gender (Winter 2005, 3).
Indeed, a single word, phet, denotes both sex and gender which undermines
attempts to translate English terms such as transgender and transsexual (Winter 2011,
252). Van Esterik (2000) explains that gender identity in Thai culture is body-based and
starts with a notion of the embodied self that is rooted in material and physiological
conditions. The Thai gender system is best represented as a continuum with permeable
boundaries, a systemthat is not primarily binary, thus allowing space for a third sex/gender.
What is stressed in the Thai system is the ability of people to move in and out of categories
according to context, allowing the ow and co-existence of multiple gender identities.
Schrock, Reid and Boyd (2005) emphasise that bodies be our friends or enemies, a
source of pain or pleasure, a place of liberation or domination, but they are also the
material with which we experience and create gender (317). Namaste (2000) and Rubin
(2003) also move transgender scholarship toward understanding the link between bodies
and subjectivities. Namaste analysed the coping mechanisms of transsexuals towards
violations and threats to their bodies from police and discriminatory health care providers
(Valocchi 2005, 766). Rubin (2003) examined FTM transsexuals experiences of feeling
betrayed by their birth bodies and their experiences and feelings as they grow into their
male bodies. Schrock, Reid and Boyd (2005) drew on the concept of an essential
connection between body and self through a sample of transsexuals who reported that
feelings of authenticity increased when their outer appearance and behavior were aligned
with their inner denition of self. The authors explain that the informants understanding
of identity and their success in assuming womanhood were thoroughly body-based.
Foremost queer theorist Judith Butler (1990) proposed the idea of free-oating
identities that are not connected to an essence but, instead, to performance. She argues,
controversially, that feminism works against its explicit aims by requiring that certain
kinds of identities in which gender does not follow from sex and those in which the
practices of desire do not follow from either sex or gender (17). This structuralist-
essentialist debate is relevant to the Thai case, where the core gender identities,
embodiments and preferred sexual practices of sex workers are mutable and may not t
specic denitions of gender categories.
Grzelinska (2012, 113) has written that queer theory has been doing exciting things with
methodologies for over 20 years now.
1
Valocchi (2005) urges greater attention to
practices (767) as having the potential to reveal individuals inner thinking, values and
desires that comprise their identities. Gahan (2012) has documented that the experiences
of gender variant people conrm the presence and existence of sexual minorities, even
in spaces where their existence is most contested and oppressed. To date, there has been
Culture, Health & Sexuality 565
a growingrecognitionof the complexrelationshipbetweenculture andpower, andincreasing
attention to the political and economic dimension of sexuality (Parker 2009, 251).
Thailands sex tourism industry
Thailand is often described as the sex tourist destination (Gallagher 2005, 4). Though this
remains a valid viewpoint, the nature of that sex has begun to shift dramatically in recent
years because of an increasing number of transgender (kathoey) sex workers. Gallagher
stated that two salient trends in particular have emerged in the sex tourism industry: the
growing heterogeneity of sex tourists and the variety of sex workers and sexual-economic
exchanges. Tourism campaigns often promote Thailand as exotic and erotic in an
attempt to attract tourists. The sex industry appears to be drawn to Thailand as a place
where emerging sexual forms can ourish and feel welcome. Sex tourism stabilises and
fosters the creation of new gender identities that are becoming more visible in the sex
industry in contemporary Thailand. The globalisation of the sex trade is legitimised by the
developed worlds encouragement of Asia as a key tourism centre (Kuo 2000, 2). Tourism
has become a signicant strategy for development in Thailand and has had a crucial impact
on the sex trade that shapes the notion of gender/sexual identities. Sex change operations
have been prominent in the global media, which has played an important role in promoting
new gender/sexual identities in Thai society.
Research and methodology
The ethnographic eldwork in this study involved Thai MTF transsexual sex workers
engaged in direct and indirect sex for hire in Thailands sex tourism industry. Almost all
the qualitative data were collected during in-depth interviews of 25 Thai transsexual sex
workers.
2
Fieldwork was conducted in Pattaya and Patpong, well-known sex-tourism hot
spots over a six-month period in 2006 (three months in each location) and followed up in
2009 (one month in each location). The interviews took place at host bars (those that
offered no special shows and had no entrance fees), go-go bars (which provide live shows
for which customers have to pay an entrance fee) and cabaret theatres in which lip synch
shows are popular.
Respondents were interviewed in Thai off stage. They were encouraged to speak about
their identities and self-images. Each respondent had more than a year of experience in the
sex tourism industry. I asked their permission and recorded and analysed their replies.
3
Later, I returned to allow the respondents to review the results and conclusions. The names
mentioned in this paper are pseudonyms, which were used to protect the identities of the
respondents.
This paper interprets gender/sexual identities and performance by how the respondents
view their own identities rather than how other people view them. The scope of this study
was limited by the fact that the respondents were engaged in illegal activities. A number of
respondents needed to be guaranteed anonymity, but the number was limited by the
discretion required to nd, select and interview them and the strict condentiality with
which all participation and information was obtained.
Findings
Male-to-female transsexual sex workers
A total of 24 transsexual sex worker informants, ranging in age from 1737 years,
participated in the study. All were working full time: 14 were entertainers/artistes in the
566 W. Ocha
cabarets, 4 were working in host bars and 6 were working in go-go bars. The respondents
came from all over the country, but the modal value consisted of 10 who came from a poor
northeastern region known as Isaan. Nine had high school education, while the majority
quit school at grade nine or lower. All but two reported their level of family nancial
security as low, with two reporting medium. All sent money home on a monthly basis
in amounts ranging from 2,000 to 5,000 baht
4
. From a Thai cultural perspective, Thai
transsexuals may buy the right to sexual and gender autonomy within their families by
providing nancial support. Such personal wealth can be used to buy a space for queer
sexual autonomy within a heteronormative culture wherein family ties remain central to
queer identity and sense of self-worth (Ocha 2008, as cited in Jackson 2011, 202).
All informants reported early feelings (between the ages of 4 and 13) of being at odds
with their male gender but had different ways of describing these feelings. In all, 13 had
the inner realisation that they were phu-ying, that is, that they were really girls, 7 felt they
were neither male nor female, while 4 felt they were really kathoey (Table 1).
Although always knowing they were different, they did not hide their identities and
enjoyed friendships as members of a third gender. As students they had to wear boys
uniforms, but they could express themselves through make-up, hairstyles, accessories and
gender-bending behaviour. Interpersonally, being of a third gender is open and acceptable
in Thailand, especially as a young person, but there is no third-gender legal status. Thus,
upon reaching adulthood, life becomes problematic because they no longer t easily into
conventional society. Even though they were live as women in every way, their legal
documentation classies them as male, causing problems in some employment sectors and
sometimes subjecting them to service in the armed forces. This mist status, in a sense,
seals their marginality and is a factor pushing them to work in the sex industry.
Identity prior to surgery
Like the transsexual informants reported in Namaste (2000), Rubin (2003) and Schrock
et al. (2005), the respondents felt they had core inner identities that differed from their
male gender. However, unlike Western transsexuals, who almost always feel that they are
women born in mens bodies (Schrock et al. 2005), informants reported three different
identities. The 13 who identied as phu-ying (women) lived pre-operatively as women
with perfectly feminine dress and appearance at all times. Being phu-ying meant they were
attracted to straight men (gender-normative men). Before vaginoplasty, all of them liked to
be the receptive partner in anal sex with straight men (Table 1).
The seven informants who early in life had felt that they were neither male nor female
reported living pre-operatively as phu-chai (men). They wore mens clothing and had
masculine identities in public. In private, however, they dressed as women, associated
with other third genders and were open about their confused identities. At the time of the
interviews, they had been taking female hormones for at least two years. Five preferred
anal sex with gay men, while two were receptive to both anal sex with gay men and
insertive vaginal intercourse with straight women (Table 1).
Four informants reported living pre-operatively as kathoey (third gender). This means
that they had a third-gender identity, but not in the same sense as phu-ying (women).
Whereas phu-ying were attracted to straight men, the phu-chai and kathoey liked to be the
receptive partner during anal sex with gay men (Table 1). All of the identities incorporated
a relational aspect: their identities included references to their preferred sexual partners.
The body is the means for engaging the world. The author agrees with Valocchi (2005)
that practices (in this case, preferred activities, preferred partners and activities considered
Culture, Health & Sexuality 567
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568 W. Ocha
objectionable) reveal something about individuals inner subjectivities. Preferred
practices/partners differentiated the informants from one another according to their own
identity labels. Thus identity, embodiment and sexuality are interlinked aspects of the self
that co-varied among these informants.
Changed nexus of identity following surgery
Table 1 shows that the range of gender identities and preferred sexual activities/partners
changed following surgery. Noteworthy is how alterations to the bodies led to
corresponding changes in identity and sexuality, sometimes both, for all of the informants.
Following surgery, the 13 phu-ying split into two identity groups: 7 remained phu-ying
while 6 came to understand themselves to be sao praphet sorng (second kind of woman:
transsexual). All continued in their preference for straight men but, with new bodies,
shifted their preference from receptive anal sex to receptive vaginal sex. Having strong
dislikes in sexual practices/partners seemed more characteristic of phu-ying than of the
other transsexual identities because phu-ying identify themselves as strictly heterosexual:
I think I am a woman so I have to like men, right? (Nicky, 25 years old, Phu-ying sex worker
in a Host Bar, Patpong)
Thais tend to believe that sexuality is either hetero-or homosexual (the author has not
been able to avoid using these terms even though they are inadequate for three-gender
societies), with no other possibilities. The relationship between a straight man and a
kathoey is therefore interpreted as heterosexual (Brummelhuis 1999; van Esterik 2000).
In Thai understandings of sexuality, being receptive makes one a woman. After surgery, of
the seven phu-chai in transition, four became sao praphet sorng, one was kathoey and two
could not explain their identities. The four sao praphet sorng strictly preferred receptive
vaginal sex with straight men, while the kathoey liked both receptive vaginal sex with
straight men and receptive anal sex with gay men. The two who could not explain their
identities preferred receptive vaginal intercourse with straight men and receptive lesbian
sex with tomboys (masculine lesbian women). This ambiguity with respect to partner
preference likely was difcult for these two because the Thai gender system does not take
complex or ambiguous congurations into account.
The four who were kathoey before the surgery remained kathoey, but three shifted their
preference from receptive anal sex with gay men to receptive vaginal sex with straight
men. One of the three liked both.
Some qualities remain stable in the before and after identities in Table 1. The surgery,
however, resulted in new body-identity-sexuality alignments. Surgery made some sexual
activities possible and foreclosed others, such as the presence of a neo-vagina, which
shifted the focus of receptive sexual activity. Another explanation for the new body-
identity-sexuality alignments is the powerful inuence exerted by the surrounding
transsexual culture of which they became a part.
Identity and sub-cultural context
A sector of the sex industry absorbs transsexual women as natural women. These phu-ying
understand themselves in binary terms and express feelings of liberation through the sex
change operations. Six of the seven reported being satised with the transformation, a
greater satisfaction rate than in the other sub-groups (Table 1). After surgery, they gained
fuller acceptance as women by family, friends and partners. Four of them were so
convincing as natural women that it was difcult for tourists or customers to notice their
Culture, Health & Sexuality 569
transsexuality, even after sexual services were performed. These four worked in host bars,
in which they talked with the customers and often went out with them to perform sexual
services. The majority of the workers in these bars were born women and these phu-ying
gave tourists the impression that they were as female as their colleagues. In this
environment, they modeled themselves after the natural women in learning English, how
to please customers and how to behave. They took on a womans aura. They visited
womens organisations, such as the Empower Foundation,
5
for help and felt more
comfortable in those places than in transgender organisations. These four had to practice
and learn to embody womanhood in the same way that Schrock et al.s (2005) transsexuals
did, by reconditioning their movements and voices to match their gender identities.
Though they always appeared as women in the bars, they could offer either phu-ying or
transsexual sex to clients, thus they were able to have either woman or transsexual
identities as the context required.
The remaining 20 transsexual sex workers, the majority of the group, were employed
in cabaret theatres or go-go bars that cultivated a particular third-gender identity and sao
praphet sorng, in order to attract tourists. Sao praphet sorng is the mainstream translation
for MTF transsexuals and is the dominant transsexual identity. Sex reassignment has
modernised kathoey. Sao praphet sorng, because of their new anatomy and sexuality,
represent a gender diversication that is historically new. Table 1 shows the dominance of
the sao praphet sorng identity. Even the 14 who do not identify themselves as sao praphet
sorng adopted the outer appearance and behaviours associated with that identity.
This identity requires the adoption of certain characteristics. Sao praphet sorng are like
natural women, only more so. They cultivate an exaggerated femininity in dress (more
makeup, sexier clothes), speak their own slang, which is well known in the subculture,
and behave in ways that distinguish them from natural women through movement, posture,
body language and eye contact. They exhibit more physical contact and more aggressive
manners in approaching potential clients. The subtle differences between natural women
and sao praphet sorng are easily recognisable to Thai people but are sometimes missed by
tourists.
The sao praphet sorng identity is learned in formal and informal ways. The cabaret
theatres construct the ideal sao praphet sorng, which is subsequently reinforced in various
ways. The six informants who worked in go-go bars had to pass job interviews, health
checks and orientation training before serving tourists. Cabaret theatres have professional
production teams, costume designers, stage conductors, sound engineers, make up artists
and others who as a team reproduce the sao praphet sorng ideal. These 14 artistes
underwent special training (from senior artistes) in manners, dancing, acting, English,
comportment and customer entertainment. They became professionals. Often living as
well as training together, transsexuals develop a strong sense of community. As described
by Tina:
. . . there are lots of people [here] who are more than my colleagues; they are friends and
relatives at the same time. We live together . . . we knowevery matter . . . I learned a lot about
transsexual aura from this workplace. I learned how to make up and make myself look great
in feminine costumes. Now, Im old enough to advise young kathoeys how to behave . . .
(Tina, 32 years old, sao praphet sorng artiste, Alcarzar Theatre)
This group accepted that the transformation of their anatomy could not make them
natural women because they were missing the aura that is instilled in natural women
from birth, moreover, they lacked the reproductive power and experience of natural
women. They tended to perceive natural women as a threat because they can never really
570 W. Ocha
compare with them. Thus, they increased their skills in pleasing men to compensate for not
being natural women.
Besides re-shaping and re-training the outer appearance, transsexuals must receive
instruction on how to use their new genitals. Often they must learn how to fake a womans
orgasm so as to please their customers. They believe that an ability to control the pelvic
muscles increases customers sexual pleasure and learn to do this through informal
training from colleagues. In live shows in go-go bars, the more-talented sex workers hold,
eject or blow objects (ping pong balls, eggs, candles, strings, lit cigarettes, darts,
chopsticks, etc.) with their neo-vaginas. These performances strengthen and control the
pelvic muscles.
Whereas this group could offer themselves sexually as phu-ying before the surgery,
transsexual sex after the surgery encompassed all the forms of sexual activity in which
natural women engage, plus more. Since they had male bodies previously, they claim that
they know exactly what men want. Further, due to their experience in the sex industry and
having had different bodies over the period of their transformation, sao praphet sorng have
had a variety of sexual experiences with different types of tourists from all over the world.
They have a large repertoire of sexual services and a high tolerance for performing acts
they may not prefer. Unlike natural women, sex workers who are encouraged to just say
no if they are made uncomfortable by clients requests, sao praphet sorng sex workers
almost never say no.
Just like Schrock et al.s (2005) sample, the personas of sao prophet sorng must be
practiced and perfected over time but unlike that sample, my informants did not learn to
be women they learned to be a second kind of woman. Their hegemonic model is
embedded in their own sub-culture, not the mainstream culture. By becoming sao praphet
sorng, they were liberated from being phu-ying. They are proud of their identities because
of the fame and money they earn and because they have found a home in the sex tourism
industry.
Sao prophet sorng benet the entertainment/sex industry. As such, their identity is the
repeated inculcation of a norm (Butler 1993, 7). From the eldwork, it seems that
transsexuals are forced into conventional categories of sex/gender and that sao praphet
sorng is a gender categorisation that these transsexuals embrace. However, this category
does not match the core selves of all sex workers. Some transsexuals still have difculty
tting into existing cultural categories, such as sao praphet sorng, kathoey or woman. The
result corresponds with Butlers notion (1990) that there is no gender identity behind the
expressions of gender; identity is performatively constituted by the very expressions that
are said to be its results (25).
In this study, 5 of my 24 respondents resisted the sao praphet sorng label and retained
the traditional kathoey to identity themselves, 4 of whom had felt that they were kathoey
before the surgery as well. This group appears as sao praphet sorng but has a different
sexuality: they are exible in their preferred sexual partners (both straight men and gay
men) while phu-ying and sao praphet sorng unambiguously prefer straight men. Though
all the informants share a standardised embodiment, adherence to a kathoey identity for
some suggests signicant diversity within the transsexual sample. The sao praphet sorng
identity did not include the two informants who could not explain their identities after
surgery.
These ndings show that a dominant identity does not t all. Instead, transsexual sex
workers dene themselves in terms that incorporate (1) their internal core feelings, (2) their
state of embodiment and (3) their sexual preferences.
Culture, Health & Sexuality 571
Residual problems after surgery
There is, however, growing resistance to the sao praphet sorng ideal. The term human
monster (a-manut) is the name given to the negative self-image of transsexuals who are not
happy with their surgical alterations. A total of 11 transsexual informants cited not being
able to reach orgasm, 11 cited the burden of care and expense associated with keeping up
their new bodies, 3 said that the appearance of their faces and bodies was not that of natural
women. Overall, 7 were satised with the transformation, 14 were partially satised and 4
were not satised (Table 1). Ten transsexuals regretted having had vaginoplasty.
Many have begun to question the necessity of full transformation. Is full sex
reassignment worth the risks? Is it the only way to be themselves? These are current topics of
discussion in the subculture. Many transsexuals talk to aspiring transsexuals so that critical
awareness is raised. Bomb, a 21-year-old sao praphet sorng sex worker in Pattaya, stated:
I tell my transgender friends who plan to undergo a vaginoplasty that nobody can guarantee
that it will be 100% functional. Because of this kind of critique, some third genders have
decided to remain in semi-reassigned states. They can do so because their sexual services
supply the demand of a segment of sex tourists who desire unique experiences.
Conclusion
In contemporary Thailand, the third gender has diversied into many distinct identities,
which the global sex trade has helped to shape. Historically, the kathoey image has been a
commonly recognised Thai third gender. The sao praphet sorng (women of a second kind)
identity, however, presents an alternative sense of being.
The sex sector media and their signicant nancial power, play an important roles in
promoting existing and constructing new gender/sexual identities. The capitalisation of the
sex industry is creating new possibilities for the development of gender/sexual identities,
which are inuenced by the modernisation of sex work. Sao praphet sorng cultivate an
exaggerated femininity. They augment their feminine qualities by increasing their skills
in pleasing men to compensate for not being natural women. They feel proud of their
identities because of the fame and money they earn though participation in Thailands sex
tourism in the twenty-rst century. The industry creates a home for sao praphet sorng,
where they can feel and be perceived as more sexually appealing than natural women.
Sex reassignment surgery, which became popular in the twentieth century, modernised
the kathoey identity and has been an important factor in making the concept of gender
more complex. Kathoey deploy medical and particular knowledge in strategic ways to
support the construction of their desired corporeal styles and identities in terms of being
like women which does not necessarily mean to become women in the ways of real
women (Sukontapatipark 2005, ii).
The sao praphet sorng identity does not always harmonise with the individual
characteristics of sex workers they often continue to have diverse sexualities and sexual
preferences. Evidence from this eldwork suggests that bodily surfaces are
transformable, temporary and aesthetically pleasing, while the self remains hidden and
ultimately unknowable. The categories and labels of sex roles and sex acts suggest that a
wide range of gender identities and sexual practices are recognised and tolerated, many of
which cannot be placed into specic gender categories (van Esterik 2000).
This paper shows that the coming together of cultures in Thailands sex tourism
industry, coupled with the advancement of medical technology, is resulting in the
emergence of new concepts of gender. Thus, gender categorisation is best theorised as a
context-sensitive process constructed through interaction with others (Butler 1993).
572 W. Ocha
Gender is a different sort of identity in which identity is repetitively constituted, and its
relation to body reference is complex (Butler 1990, 63). Gendered surfaces are carefully
and aesthetically presented in public to communicate how one expects to be regarded
(van Esterik 2000, 2023).
Notes
1. Queer includes many diverse and marginal sexualities, inter-sex people; human beings whose
biological sex cannot be classied as clearly male or female (Dreger 2001; Money and Ehrhardt
1972) and transgenders. The convergence of feminism and the gay liberation movement,
essentially through the emergence of third wave feminism recognising marginal sexualities, has
resulted in the emergence of queer as an inclusive category (Jagose 1996).
2. Interviews were conducted with a total of 25 full transsexuals; however, one transsexual was
excluded from analysis because, by his own account, he was a gender normative man undergoing
sex reassignment surgery solely for nancial reasons.
3. The author is a cisgender woman, a term that indicates that ones gender identity is congruent
with ones birth sex (Bender-Baird 2008).
4. At the time of the study, the exchange rate was approximately 50 baht to 1GBP.
5. Empower Foundation is a group formed by female sex workers to protect the rights of female
sex workers in terms of violations from clients and bar owners and includes the provision of basic
healthcare knowledge for safe sex and skills training for other employment.
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Resume
Cet article vise a` apporter sa contribution a` la comprehension des identites de genre/sexuelles
emergentes en Tha lande. Ce pays est devenu une destination prisee pour la chirurgie de
transformation sexuelle en fournissant la technologie medicale qui permet la transformation
comple`te, sans trop de procedures operatoires et avec des resultats satisfaisants a` des prix
raisonnables. Les donnees ont ete collectees a` partir dentretiens avec 24 transgenres mtf (hommes
vers femmes) exercant le commerce du sexe a` Pattaya et a` Patpong, des lieux tre`s connus pour le
tourisme sexuel en Tha lande. Les resultats sugge`rent lemergence de nouvelles comprehensions de
lidentite de genre/sexuelle. Le tourisme sexuel et le commerce du sexe apportent un eclairage
important sur le processus a` travers lequel le genre est conteste et repense. La rencontre des cultures
dans lindustrie du sexe en Tha lande, associee aux progre`s de la technologie medicale, a pour
resultat lemergence de nouvelles conceptions du genre.
574 W. Ocha
Resumen
El objetivo de este art culo es ayudar a entender las nuevas identidades sexuales/de genero en
Tailandia. Tailandia se ha convertido en un destino popular para las operaciones de cambio de sexo
porque dispone de la tecnolog a medica para una completa transformacion, con relativamente pocos
procedimientos y resultados satisfactorios a un precio razonable. Para este estudio, se recogieron los
datos de 24 transexuales de hombre a mujer que trabajan en la industria sexual de Pattaya y Patpong,
centros activos bien conocidos del turismo sexual en Tailandia. Los resultados indican la aparicion
de nuevos conceptos de la identidad sexual/de genero. El turismo y el trabajo sexual destacan en gran
medida el proceso por el que se cuestiona y reimagina cada sexo. El encuentro de las culturas en la
industria sexual de Tailandia, unido a los avances de tecnolog a medica, ha dado lugar a la aparicion
de nuevos conceptos del sexo.
Culture, Health & Sexuality 575
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