Kathoey “In Trend”: Emergent Genderscapes, National Anxieties and the Re-Signification of Male-Bodied Effeminacy in Thailand¹

“In trend” (: in-tharen) is Thai slang meaning trendy, fashionable or popular. The term suggests that a style or phenomenon is expanding, but that it is not expected to be a permanent fixture of social life. “In trend” is the opposite of “out” (: ao), and contrasts with terms such as choei (: dated, uninteresting) and ban-nok (: uncultivated, bumpkin).

Abstract

In Thailand, genderscapes, or the terrain of gender and sexuality, continue to evolve quickly, with male-to-female transgenderisms and effeminate gay identities proliferating alongside masculine ones. The previous coding of kathoey in popular discourse as being traditional is shifting to one that identifies “kathoeyness”, or male effeminacy, with modernity. Recent incidents point to a discursive shift based on a purified nostalgia for Thai “tradition”, which excises kathoey presence. In this article, I consider how social evaluation and moral legitimacy underscore the contemporary terrain of gender/sexuality and contradictory attitudes towards kathoeyness. I describe how the increasing visibility of male effeminacy provokes national anxiety, becomes associated with degeneracy, and is used to excise non-normative gender from recent reconstructions of Thainess.

Keywords:

• Thailand
• male effeminacy
• transgenderism
• homosexuality
• gender panic
• modernity
• tradition

Notes

“In trend” (: in-tharen) is Thai slang meaning trendy, fashionable or popular. The term suggests that a style or phenomenon is expanding, but that it is not expected to be a permanent fixture of social life. “In trend” is the opposite of “out” (: ao), and contrasts with terms such as choei (: dated, uninteresting) and ban-nok (: uncultivated, bumpkin).

Iron Ladies was the highest grossing Thai film at the time of its release.

This research is part of a larger project comparing how class structures Thai kathoey and gay men's life opportunities, romantic partner preferences, and risk of HIV. Anthropological fieldwork consisting of participant observation, in-depth interviews and discourse analysis of media was conducted for 42 months between 2004 and 2011 with approximately 300 gay/kathoey informants and their families and friends. Emphasis was placed on Asian regionalism and East Asian cultural flows. The author is of Korean descent.

I use “male” and “male-bodied” to refer to the sex of individuals who were born male, regardless of gender expression or surgical status. “Transgender woman” refers to an individual who was born male but perceives of and presents herself as a woman.

“Tom” refers to masculine women who engage in same-sex relationships. Their counterparts are “dee”, feminine women in relationships with “tom”. The terms are derived from the English “tomboy” and “lady”.

Nouns from Thai are not modified to express plural form. That is, like the English word “sheep”, which variously denotes both singular and plural forms, the plural of “kathoey” is “kathoey”. Thai transliteration is rendered in a modified version of the Royal Institute system unless a common or preferred rendering exists.

The media is not homogeneous or monolithic. For example, kathoeyness can be depicted positively in soap operas while being repudiated in news talk shows.

Jackson (2003) uses the term “eroticised genders” and Sinnott (2004) uses the term “gendered sexualities”.

While sexuality is understood as private and thus not subject to social condemnation, for gender non-normative individuals, sexuality is presumed to be an extension of their gender. With growing use of surgery, kathoey visibility is also decreasing as they increasingly pass as women.

 Sinnott (2007) and Jackson (2000) have also documented the limited use of the term “kathoey”. Thai academics often refer to gender “fluidity”, as identities follow a developmental trajectory and situational positioning. Ocha (2008) differentiates between “half and half” (those who have either breast implants or neo-vaginas but not both) and “fully transformed” transgender sex workers. Prempreeda (2008) identifies five types of kathoey: post-operative transgender, pre-operative transgender, drag queen, penetrating-girl (active in sexual intercourse), and those who live part-time as transgender and part-time as men.

The earliest use of kham-phet to refer to transgender/transsexual individuals I have documented is from 2001. The term was popularised in academic and activist circles by Prempreeda at the 2005 Sexualities, Genders, and Rights in Asia: 1st International Conference of Asian Queer Studies. Subsequently, the term has been included in Thai dictionaries to refer to transgender individuals (: khon kham-phet) and biomedical gender transformation procedures and sex change operations (e.g. : kan-kin homon kham-phet, taking hormones to change sex).

The term (sao thi-ji: transgender woman), borrowing from the English abbreviation “TG”, appeared on the Thai Internet by 2008. The Rainbow Sky Association of Thailand publicly started to use the term in 2010. It is associated with activism, and particularly, HIV prevention work targeting MSM and TG (men who have sex with men and transgender women) in a public health context with development funding from Western nations.

King and queen have been taken up by lesbians in les king and les queen. See Sinnott, this volume.

Kathoey-noi are not uncommon. They are generally young, around 16 to 26, and are often said to be transitioning into a kathoey lifestyle.

For a discussion of the heterogender matrix, see Peletz (2006).

See also Storer (1999).

Pile sorts are a cognitive mapping procedure to understand how community members think about and attach meaning to different items within a conceptual domain. I began the exercise with a free list to identify the phet respondents conceived of as most salient. Up to 22 terms were then sorted based on similarity. If there were more than three initial piles, I asked participants to subsequently sort into three piles and then two piles, as I wanted to see if the 3-sex system would be reproduced and how genders in the third category, especially kathoey, would be categorised as males or females. There were 37 participants.

Van Esterik (2000) notes how working-class women avoided and resisted Thai bureaucratic pressures to conform to ideals of Western femininity.

This attitude is particularly prevalent among those educated in English-language medium international schools or abroad.

For a discussion of kathoey in Thai media, see Morris (1997), Sinnott (2000) and Käng (2011).

A parallel proliferation in representation has not occurred for tom-dee. At least in Bangkok, one could argue that tom-dee are more visible than kathoey and gay, in that they are often seen publicly holding hands as couples. They are, however, generally not considered threatening to normative gender in the same way that male same-sex couples are. For the ubiquitous presence of tom-dee in shopping malls, see Wilson (2004). Yes or No (dir. Sarasawade Wongsompetch), the first tom-dee romantic comedy, was released in December 2010.

The suppression of images often ultimately proliferates them through discussion of their censorship in newspapers, television and online. However, many representations continue to be expunged. Television producers self-censor because they can be fined retrospectively. Art films banned in Thailand are seen primarily by foreign audiences. The government routinely blocks websites deemed to threaten the monarchy, religion, social order or public morals. Pornography is illegal but distributed through black market channels.

Kathoey, however, are not considered direct competition for men. From the perspective of heterosexual men, kathoey are considered mistress material, not marriage material.

My research project (Gender Pluralism, Social Status, and Asian Regionalism in Bangkok, Thailand) was approved by the Thai government. During a visit to the office, I was asked by the director to talk with her about my research. She stated that in Thailand only 70 per cent of the population were “real” men and women, while 10 per cent of females and 20 per cent of males were “not normal”. She suggested that my research on gay/kathoey would be better if I figured out a way to reduce their numbers. For population estimates see Käng (2011).

Northerners are said to be soft and light-skinned, both of which are associated with femininity. Northeasterners are considered robust, dark-skinned and the most impoverished. Southerners are deemed hard, dark-skinned and often Muslim. This arrangement positions Central Thais as the norm.

Metrosexual (2006, dir. Yongyoot Thongkongtoon) is a Thai film in which a group of women tries to prove to their friend that her fiancée, who is too perfect to be heterosexual, must be gay. The Thai title is (kaeng chani kap ee-aep: Gang of Girls and the Closet Case). In Thai, “metrosexual” refers to gay.

As gyms often have dedicated spaces for women, the main areas become highly homosocial. One of the most popular Thai gay websites, palm-plaza.com, accessed 10 February 2009, has a forum dedicated to discussion about gyms and the sexual activities that occur there.

As in other parts of Asia, there is not an emphasis on “coming out” in Thailand. However, there is less emphasis on hiding one's gender/sexual non-conformity than there is in Confucian Asian societies. Effeminate gay will often state that people know about their sexual orientation, even if they have not been told, because they “show” themselves.

The third person singular pronoun in Thai is gender neutral.

For a discussion of tolerance and acceptance, see Jackson (1999b).

The Wonder Girls are an award-winning Korean girl band that swept the charts in many Asian countries in 2008.

‘Nobody – Ouz Wonder Girls (cover)’, posted by OuzKorPai on YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=031N31B4EvM, accessed 13 October 2011.

The televised interview was recorded by the author. Translation of the interview is by the author and research assistant Ronnapoom Suparasamee.

For a history of pathologising discourses on homosexuality and transgenderism between 1956 and 1994 in Thailand, see Jackson (1997b).

Both satri and phuying mean “woman”. As satri is more formal and incorporates a sense of cultivation, I have translated it as “lady”. The important component of these terms is the use of kham-phet to mean “transsexual''.

The second episode was watched by the author with a group of activists during the inaugural meeting of the Thai Transgender Alliance at a retreat on the outskirts of Bangkok.

Nok claims that all other countries in Southeast Asia apart from Myanmar recognise sex change and that Thailand lags behind less developed countries such as Vietnam and Cambodia as well as more conservative countries such as Malaysia and Singapore. Positing Thailand as similar to Myanmar, which many Thais consider to be their national arch-enemy, plays on historical emotions.

For more detailed analysis of legal issues, see Sanders (2011).

I borrow the term “therapeutic citizenship” from Nguyen (2005) to describe human rights claims made on the state based on disease status.

The Ministry of Public Health considered homosexuality a mental illness until 2002. In 2011, the military revised the language for kathoey exemption from conscription from “severe mental illness” to “gender does not correspond with the sex at birth”.

Monks (phra) must be at least 20 years old and fully ordained. Those under 20 are referred to as novices (nen).

Female monks in Thailand are not officially recognised by the sangha.

Ordination rituals in some regions of Thailand use cosmetics. One monk has argued in lectures and on the Pink Mango cable television program (29 August 2010) that monks have historically been able to wear a wide variety of garments. He uses historical photos of famous monks to show that the robes of these maligned novices are within acceptable limits.

Although the question can be framed with a positive valence (e.g. showcasing the tolerance of Thai society), typically it insinuates that Thailand is deficient in masculinity.