Of transgender and sin in Asia

Abstract

There are vibrant transgender communities in both Thailand and the Philippines (e.g. see Winter, 2006; Winter, Sasot and King, in prep). Yet the languages of Thailand and the Philippines lack single words that correspond to our words ‘transgender’/ ‘transsexual’. In Thailand the commonest word for transwomen is kathoey. Originally used to describe hermaphrodites, the word later broadened to embrace any male contravening gender role expectations (gays, effeminate males etc), only recently (with the word ‘gay’ entrenched in Thai) used more specifically to describe transwomen. The word kathoey can carry negative connotations; transwomen are not always comfortable with it. One reason may be that the word implies that one is a variant of male rather than female. Whether it is taken offensively depends a lot on how it is used. In this paper I use the word respectfully, seeking to reclaim it in the way that Western gays have done with the word ‘queer’