Tuesday, 3 April 2012

LadyBoy

In Thailand there are a lot of ga-teu-i, which means ladyboy.  Ga-teu-i is the formal way to say a person with two sexes who still have male body parts but dress as a female.  "Phuying kham pet" is generally more appropriate when referring to ladyboys.
Many can not have proper jobs since companies don't want to have a ladyboy associated with their name.  Ladyboys are not allowed to use either female or male bathrooms in their work place but have their own special bathroom.  Most ladyboys work in the sex industry, which is a big industry down here in Thailand.  The law also states that ladyboy's ID and passports must have the letter "M" for male, since thai people follow the definition "a female is someone who can bear a child."
An operation for becoming a ladyboy in Thailand costs about 150,000 baht which converted to Canadian is about 5,000.  This includes getting snipped, breast implants, and the adam's apple shaved off.  Other operations include silicon implants in the hips, jaw narrowing, cheekbone shaving and chin sculpting.  After the operation female hormones need to be taken regularly.  These hormones can either come in pill form, which is taken twice a week, or in an injection which is per month.  Even though there is a fair amount of ladyboys in Thailand no family particularly wants to have their son become a transgender.
Most the time its very easy to tell who's a ladyboy but there are those occasional times when you need to take a very good look.  Most the time its how they act that gives it away.

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