Thailand's Distorted View Of Transgender People

OK, Transgender brothers and sisters. Take off the rose colored glasses about Thailand being so accepting of Trans folks. The Thai government tolerates Transgender people only because of the revenue brought into the country by Trans folks seeking Gender Reassignment Surgery - GRS and by tourists investing in the lucrative Thai sex industry. Thailand's Transgender folks are objectified and marginalized for the sordid enjoyment of mainly Western Europeans and Americans. The Thai government turns the other way as long as the money keeps rolling into the country. Who is to blame? As in the rest of the world, cisgender, transphobic, religious extremists and cowardly, self-serving politicians are the culprits. The conservative cults of Buddhism take a very myopic view of the world. Trans kids are forced from their homes and villages to the cities where they do whatever they have to do to survive and the Thai politicians could care less. Sound familiar? So if you are Trans and happen to be visiting Thailand anytime soon, please be careful. Thailand is not as kind and inclusive as you might think.  Thailand bans serious movie by transgender director as immoral Posted on: December 25th, 2010 by Andrew Roberts The increasingly active Film Censorship Board in Thailand has banned a new movie directed by a transsexual as immoral. Known worldwide for its bar girls, expat gay communities and loose attitude towards sexual matters, Thailand would appear to be tightening the noose around its movie makers as well as increasing controls over its media. The latest movie by director Tanwarin Sukkhapisit, herself a transsexual, has been banned for ‘pornographic and immoral scenes’, according to the censors, although its theme is a transsexual father struggling to bring up his children. According to Tanwarin, however, ‘Insects in the Backyard’, hasn’t been banned because a scene depicted gay sex, it was banned because it is a serious film. She adds that, on Thai television, comedies featuring transsexuals and gays are considered perfectly acceptable. The problem with the movie, Tanwarin says, is not that it’s a gay-themed movie, it’s because the script outlines problems which occur when a society cannot accept sexual differences. She added Thai society .pretends to accept differences, but in reality it can’t bring itself to do so. She plans to appeal the censorship board’s decision as she feels it reflects a government using its powers to suppress people with different opinions. Many outsiders have a perception of Thailand as tolerating a visible transgender population, with transgender beauty pageants a regular occurrence in notorious ‘sexpat’ resort towns such as Pattaya. Aimed at tourists, the displays are very different from attitudes in the rural hinterlands, from where transsexuals often escape to the big cities to avoid prejudice. The situation regarding gays, especially in the expat communities, is not dissimilar, as was witnessed in the northern city of Chiang Mai in 2009 when an annual gay parade aimed at Aids/HIV awareness was disrupted and finally cancelled by a local group claiming it violated their heritage. Attempts to revive the parade have been unsuccessful so far. Original article