Transsexual emergence: gender variant identities in Thailand

Abstract

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 significantly illuminates the process through which gender is contested and re-imagined. The coming together of cultures in Thailand's sex industry, coupled with advances in medical technology, has resulted in the emergence of new concepts of gender.

Orientalist obsessions: fabricating hyper-reality and performing hyper-femininity in Thailand's kathoey tourism

“…In this case, the Orientalist object of desire need not always be 'authentically' female in order to tempt the male tourist gaze. It appears that the diversification of the sexual economy in Thailand has allowed a range of sexual roles and practices that 'exceeds simple binaries of normative heterosexuality and non-normative homosexuality', albeit within confined, personal spaces (Blackwood and Johnson 2012, 447;Ocha 2012). Upon closer inspection, however, kathoey tourism perpetuates Orientalist conceptions of binary sex and gender categories.…”

“…Tan the enactment of their sexual roles (both receptive and penetrative). In this respect, these kathoeys do disrupt a conventional gender order or a heterosexual matrix (Butler 1990;Connell 2002;Ocha 2012). Following this line of inquiry, being in drag denaturalizes the consistencies between anatomy, gender identity and sexual practices by evincing that the body is not a static entity, but rather, is 'a mode of becoming that, in becoming otherwise, exceeds the norm' (Butler 2004, 7;Bell 1994).…”

“…Indeed, when 'the real is no longer a given but is reproduced by a simulated environment, it does not become unreal, but realer than real', 'a hallucinatory resemblance of [reality]' (Williams 2006, 484), not unlike how some 'authentically fake' kathoey bodies are thought to look and feel better than real biological women (Eco 1987;Brummelhuis 1999;Jackson 1999b;Totman 2003). Arguably, kathoeys not only possess an unsurpassed intimate knowledge of male embodiment, she 2 'is [also] warmer, more passionate, sexier, and tighter than most women' and in general, competent in the provision of a large repertoire of sexual services (Schifter et al 1996, 115;Ocha 2012 (Schifter et al 1996, 115;Brummelhuis 1999;Totman 2003).…”

“…Many of the dancers at Alcazar Cabaret are post-operative transwomen who have also undertaken a plethora of other cosmetic procedures such as hip filling, facial sculpting, eyelash extensions, and silicone, collagen and botox injections. Those working in go-go bars with live displays of katheoys ejecting objects from their genitals may even need to work on strengthening their pelvic muscles, a skill that will purportedly assist them in augmenting the sexual pleasure of their clients (Ocha 2012). In other words, their feminine embodiment has become a crucial site for the realization of economic profits.…”

“…Meanwhile, a burgeoning body of work has just begun to attend to the proliferation of non-normative sexualities from the 'Global South' and there have been some attempts to situate kathoeys within landscapes of global tourism (Jackson 2011;Ocha and Earth 2012;Ocha 2012Ocha , 2013Ocha , 2014Spanger 2013). This paper aims to extend the literature by offering a postcolonial analysis of transgender bodily labour, which has yet to be systematically explored.…”