Introduction

This chapter examines the earliest awareness of being different of the young men in the study. Most young men described experiencing a sense of ‘gender nonconformity’, which often occurred long before they became aware of any same-sex attraction. A smaller group of men found out they were attracted to fellow males later in life, after reaching puberty; they did not encounter the same sense of gender nonconformity, but I will show that gender played an important role in their early understandings of their sexuality as well.

Kathoey, Thailand's ‘Third Gender’

The third gender, kathoey, has often been described as having both feminine and masculine characteristics. The term has been translated into English in many different ways: transgender, transsexual, transvestite or the popular term ‘ladyboy’. The definition used in this chapter includes all these terms. Ten Brummelhuis (1999) observed that, in the eyes of prospective sexual partners of kathoey, the feminine-sexual aspect and a homosocial aspect adds to their attraction. For example, unlike ‘good’ Thai women, kathoey often drink alcohol, smoke, like talking about sex and making naughty jokes, and like to go out, dance and have fun. The fact that kathoey cannot have children automatically disqualifies them as serious marriage partners in the eyes of ‘traditional’ Thai men, making them suitable for fun and casual sex only. Kathoey, because of their cross-dressing habits as well as specific social roles, are easily recognizable in Thai society. It is therefore not surprising that for the samesex-attracted young men in this study, kathoey was either a role model or an example of how they did not want to be.

Many scholars have marvelled about the fact that Thailand has supposedly transcended the female–male binary by having a third gender category, kathoey, often defined either as ‘neither male nor female’ or as ‘both male and female’. But are kathoey really a third, separate gender? One could also claim that kathoey is a type of woman and not a third gender category. Since Thai male bodies tend to be smaller, smoother and slimmer than Western bodies (at least before the mass introduction of Coca-Cola, Lay's and Western fast food), a degree of physical femaleness may be more attainable to them, provided they have the means, financially and medico-technically, to move in this direction.