All Things Trans

Thailand: striking, transgender and running for office

transqueery:

You wouldn’t know it from this photo, but Yonlada “Nok” Suanyot was born male.

And if Nok wins a coming election in a sleepy, largely conservative Thai province, she could become the highest-ranking transgender politician in the country’s history.

Nok, according to both the Bangkok Postand The Nation, is competing for provincial office in Nan, Thailand. To the best of my knowledge, no male-to-female transgender Thai (called “kathoeys” in Thai) has been elected to anything higher than a small, district-level position.

She is perhaps best known as the singer “Posh Venus” in an all-transgender pop group called Venus Flytrap. (Nok has since left the group.)

Thailand is often seen as widely accepting of kathoeys. Compared to most societies, it is. But outside of the entertainment industry, kathoeys often find it difficult to ascend to lofty positions of power.

Upwardly mobile kathoeys often feel they’re passed over and not taken seriously. They remain the butt of jokes on televised variety shows. Until a recent change in military policy, they were conscripted and summarily dismissed as “permanently insane” or “deformed,” a diagnosis that appears on papers male-born Thais are often expected to submit during job interviews. (My article “The Lovely Conscripts”profiled this phenomenon in 2010.) 

But the artist formerly known as Posh Venus appears to have earned her business bonafides. According to The Nation, she’s a PhD candidate who “owns a jewellery business and runs a satellite television station.”

In her bid for office, Nok will likely find that her looks overshadow her political platform. A Facebook photo of Nok standing next to her campaign signage suggests she’s running on typical Thai political promises: addressing flood woes, services for youth and the elderly and a vow to open a 24-hour citizen complaint hotline.

Via his Facebook page, here’s her most viable rival, Pawat Sattayawong, a candidate with Thailand’s ruling political party, Pheu Thai.

A victory for Nok wouldn’t usher in a new era of universal acceptance for Thailand’s kathoeys.

But many Thais will be curious to see whether a transgendered candidate can win over enough voters to gain political power in an otherwise sleepy province.

Source: http://www.globalpost.com/globalpost-blogs/southeast-asia/transgender-yonlada-suanyot

Trans* Visibility and the Creation of Safe Spaces

iragray:

It’s Saturday, April 21st, and in Phoenix, that means it’s the beginning of Pride weekend. At least, this year it means that. It also means that the sun will be high in the sky and beaming down on all of us. The air will settle in the valley and raise in temperature until it reaches the 90s. I recently had my top surgery, as most of you know. It was the perfect reason to not wear a shirt for most of the day, despite the sun potentially darkening my scars. There is something more empowering about making a shirtless debut than the fear of having scars that will be forever visible. 

The general public isn’t used to seeing scars. Therefore, they tend to gawk a little bit. By “a little bit” I really mean “a lot”. I was nervous about going to Pride shirtless. I’m not afraid of being visibly trans* or queer usually. I come out to a lot of people. I share my experiences with strangers, and I’ll educate anyone who asks me something. It’s in my nature to play this role. In truth, my experience has been that while straight, cisgender individuals know less about the existence of trans* folks, they’re more accepting and more willing to learn compared to the gay, cisgender folks with whom I interact. This may not be everyone’s experiences. It certainly doesn’t apply to everyone in my social sphere. It’s noticeable though. 

This made me nervous. I wanted to go to Pride to have fun, to dance, to party with my friends. I wanted to go as a scandalous, femme queer. I didn’t want to be educator for a day. At the festival, I was certainly gawked at. People stared, pointed, whispered things. I expected to be approached. I expected to pegged as trans*. Maybe someone whispered something about my visibility. Maybe they didn’t. No one I didn’t know approached about it though. I quickly realized I had overestimated those who take part in homonormative culture. Most people didn’t know I was trans* it seemed like. It seemed as though the general consensus was a “concern” for my exposing my scars to public eyes. 

I decided to change the course for the day. Maybe I could play educator without having to talk so much. Maybe I could represent trans* people to a degree while still being able to dance all night. My friend Christian and I went to the Art Expo tent. We got our hands on some paint, and he painted “Transgender Pride” on my chest, and, yes, I do have a tan line now from some of the letters, regrettably not all of them.

There were two people who presented as women behind him as he painted these words on me. They smiled in such a way that exuded relief. One of them introduced herself to me and asked for my name. There weren’t very many words exchanged. We had a trans* moment. I wouldn’t say they “looked” trans*, because I don’t even know what that means. I just had a feeling, especially considering the look of immense gratitude on one of their faces. She smiled again, shook my hand while saying it was nice to meet me, and said “God bless you.” It last less than five minutes, but it was a very powerful for me. As folks who are presumably trans women, being visible for them is much more dangerous than it is for me. 

Not everyone has the ability (or the desire) to be visibly trans* or queer. A lot our community shames those people. I often reprimand those who do by reminding them that we need to make safer spaces for people to be visible in as opposed to shaming them for feeling unsafe in unsafe spaces. It’s complicated in the trans* community, with the difference between trans* identified and being of trans* experience. Not everyone who transitions is trans* and therefore has nothing to come out as. 

Our community has varying levels of privilege. Therefore, we also have varying access to safe spaces and support. This is double-edged sword I feel. I want to say that it is my duty as someone who is more privileged than others in some ways to be visible. It is safer for me to do so. Conversely, my privileges make me, others like me, and others more privileged than me the most visible, which is problematic as it lends to the erasure of the rest of our community. 

Trans* activism requires that we check ourselves, our access to privilege, and examine our experiences in comparison to those of others and in comparison to paradigms. White, binary, trans men who feel safe being visible should do so, but then learn to move back, to make space for the non-binary folks, for the trans* folks of color, for the trans* folks who are gendered male at birth. 

It’s not about moving forward to only take the limelight. That shows the world the existence of a singular type of trans* person, which lends itself to the normative trans* narrative. It’s about moving forward, spreading out as much as possible, and inviting others to move forward while you move back, not in retreat, but out of respect and solidarity.

(via blindharrier)