If I have to suffer through a 14-hour bus ride, I’m willing to talk to whomever fate places in the neighboring seat. When my partner on the ride south from Bangkok happened to be a Thai girl, I was prepared to combat any language barrier that might stand between us. At least I could fill the stale air with my own voice.
As I began to speak, however, I was pleasantly surprised that my new friend understood my small talk and greeted it with a smile. We covered all the standard traveling chit chat: where I was from, where her home province was, what I studied, what she did for work. About 15 minutes into this exchange, I noticed a distinctive attribute that I had neglected to see during out shallow conversation: her Adam’s apple. She was a he.
Such transgender confusion was the subject of many jokes prior to my departure for Thailand. Even my aunt had made the lewd “happy ending?” joke before sending me on my way. In a backpacker’s bar I heard one traveler recount his sexual misadventure with a “chick with a dick,” a label which someone corrected as a “man with a dress.”
Even though my interaction with my bus buddy lacked any flirtation whatsoever, I was still taken aback by my discovery, and struggled to hide my surprise. I felt an urge to end the conversation and then a twitch of guilt for having that urge. I couldn’t tell if she sensed my discomfort, but she did not intend to dodge the question of her gender.
“So, do you know any girls like me?” she asked.
This question triggered a nervous seizure of body shifting, stuttering and awkward facial expressions. She smiled at my unease, maybe laughed a little, and leaned against the window to fall asleep.
I can’t be sure if I offended her, or if she just felt a wave of sudden exhaustion, but either way I felt embarrassed about how I acted and ashamed that I had alienated someone who surely suffers in society for her lifestyle.
After spending more time in Thailand, I learned that people in her situation, “lady-boys,” as they’re called, are neither rare nor persecuted. While obviously a minority, some men live their lives as women without blatant hassle and discrimination, and are integrated into daily life just like everyone else.
While a father may not want this life for his son, the “lady-boy” usually will not be disowned for living the way that she is. One person I met attributed the prevalence of transgender individuals in Thailand to the powerful position of the matriarch in the family, as well as the tendency of the women in the family to coddle and hover over sons. Thus, becoming a “lady-boy” is viewed as a product of the family rather than some genetic defect.
This incident illuminated my own narrow conceptions of society. I was and am disappointed in my own reaction to foreign situations. I will not feign any personal “growth” from the experience, as the clichés of travel-writing would encourage me to do. If the circumstances repeated themselves, I would probably become uncomfortable in the same manner as before. While I may think of myself as a liberal with an open mind, my preconceived notions of normality follow me wherever I travel.
