The Ladyboys of Thailand

Official numbers state there are 2,00,000 ladyboys in Thailand. After four days in Bangkok, it seems there are more, reports Ruchira Hoon.

All I can think of is getting a massage. I am in Bangkok and as I walk past the various sois or streets in the business hub Sukhumvit, the massage parlours look very inviting. For an hour-long back massage, it costs 150 baht, for a foot rub with tiger balm 200 baht, and for a body massage 250 baht. And they are open 24 hours. Where are you going to get such prices in India?

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I leave my husband who’s getting a haircut and hop across to the massage place next door. I ask for a foot massage. The pony-tailed Thai girl asks me to take my shoes off and sit comfortably. My eyes are closed. And I’m holding on to my bag tightly, lest I get mugged. Some 15 minutes later into my massage, my husband rushes into the parlour looking rather uncomfortable.

“What happened?” I ask him in Hindi.

“It’s a man who’s massaging you.”

“How do you know?”

He sends me a text. “Look at the hands.”

They look normal to me.

Another text. “Look at the face, there’s too much hair. It doesn’t look like s/he threads.”

He’s right. There is much too much hair. I look at the hands again. They are very large. And then I spot the bobbing Adam’s apple.

Well, that’s Thailand for you. The home for the ladyboy or the kathoey as they are known in Thai. It’s a country where the sex -change industry attracts more than one lakh visitors every year from across the world for its state-of-the-art medical technology. Moreover, the kathoeys are also openly recognised as the “third sex” and are welcomed into various walks of everyday life.

I promptly tell my husband to wait in the bar next door till I finish. Five minutes later, he rushes back in. Now what, I yell. “My bottom just got pinched by a ladyboy.”

Official numbers state there are 2,00,000 ladyboys in Thailand. But four days in Bangkok, and we definitely feel there are more. The cashier at the 7-11 store looks a little manly. The girl who served us beer did seem to have a baritone. But it is all reflected well on my husband’s scuttled look. “I think those numbers are too few. There are at least 10,000 more.”

Ladyboys are cross-dressers and they are an integral part of Thai culture. While they are mostly men who display various degrees of feminity, there are some who are quite brazen about their sexuality. They’ll invite you for drinks, sell you an outrageous dress and even talk about the discrimination they face as transsexuals.

I’m told that despite a law passed in 1997, which makes kathoeys equal to men and women, Thailand’s lady-boys have been campaigning for separate bathrooms and passports for years. Yet, they seem happy.

A lot of kathoeys work in entertainment and tourist centres. We pass several cabaret shows which feature them. They’re a conspicuous attraction as a huge crowd gathers at the theatres every night. There’s a Thai ladyboy band called Venus Flytrap, a girl group with a twist. I also come across a newspaper report about the current Miss International Queen 2009, a beauty contest for transsexuals. They really are everywhere. And yet they are hard to spot. Some are beautiful, some are well-endowed.

The husband listed some things out:

Thai women are petite, and a lady-boy is much bigger, almost the size of a western woman.

The voice is deeper, so they talk in whispers.

They wear a lot of polo necks to cover their Adam’s apple.

Their hands are very large.

Of course, he adds, you can check under their skirts. (But, skip that.)

So, do you want a rub? I ask. He grimaces. “I don’t want to be touched by a man.” Me, I don’t care who’s giving me a good old fashioned knead. As the movie Jerry Maguire goes: they had me at ‘massage’.