If there's any truth in the Thai saying that being born into womanhood is entering into an ordeal, then surely starting a new life as a "transwoman" involves an even greater test. The controversy over young people getting castrated is a case in point.

Testicle removal began a few years ago in the transgender-beauty-pageant circle, and reports of beautiful skin and absence of muscular and Adam's apple bulges - whether scientifically attributable to the operation or not - spread like wildfire. Long neglected by the medical establishment, many katoey rushed to try out this new procedure, while continuing to take the hormones that have been a standard form of "treatment" for several decades despite their negative side effects.

Who can blame them? Thai katoey find it impossible to get and keep jobs that their levels of education merit. Rampant discrimination in the workplace means they are                   pigeonholed into a handful of career paths: department store salespersons, hairstylists, makeup artists and cabaret girls. Beauty pageants offer young katoey a golden opportunity - the ever-elusive fame

and fortune that just about all young people aspire to.

But to a transgender, more important than fame, and something that their peers never have to worry about, is acceptance.

The recent winners of, say, the Tiffany beauty pageants, found overnight recognition - the kind that most katoey can only dream of - almost solely on account of their looks. Even the most trans-phobic showered praises on their "angelic beauty", which "surpasses that of ordinary female perfection". Ironically, this phenomenon also led many "normal" women to seek the same over-the-counter hormone pills used by the katoey, blissfully oblivious of the side effects.

In the meantime, transgenders who fail the beauty requirements risk being regarded as "nymphomaniac buffalo katoey", a mass-media label that reflects the ridicule and contempt shown in many recent popular films.

Self-acceptance takes time to develop. More experienced katoey can provide counselling to younger ones, so that they will consider their options more carefully before resorting to potentially harmful treatments just to meet others' unreasonable expectations.

But until Thai society stops the discrimination that bars transgenders from living as equals and achieving success on our own merits, it should think twice before telling us what to do with our bodies.

By Nada Chaiyajit

Special to

Daily Xpress