Wednesday, June 15, 2011

How To Spot a Ladyboy

If it seems too good to be true, then it probably is.

If you have ever spent any amount of time in Thailand then odds are that at one point or another you have come across a ladyboy.  The name is explanatory in itself, but for those of you who still live in your Westernized bubble, a ladyboy is a male to female transgender person or an effeminate gay male.  The ladyboys in Thailand look so perfectly feminine that it is often hard to tell the difference between a Thai lady and a ladyboy.  Playing the at-first-glance game "Is She a Lady or Ladyboy" is much like at-first-glance game "Is He Gay or European," where the differences are slight and the guesser is usually wrong.

Before coming to Southeast Asia I had heard funny stories of straight men being fooled into going home with ladyboys; typical men overlooking subtle hints such as big feet, broad shoulders and unusually deep voices and instead diverting their eyes straight to attractive facial features, perfect make-up, teeny waists and surgically enhanced breasts.  It was only when I sat down at my first Thai Bar in Koh Chang back in December that I really began to understand how hard it is to tell the difference.

Lucky for me I got into a conversation with a man at that same bar who offered me his knowledge and expertise on the subject.  He was your typical fifty-something chain-smoking divorced man with an ordinary name who came to Thailand looking to start a new life.  He had been living in Thailand for the last five years or so and was on vacation in Koh Chang with his (much?) younger Thai girlfriend.

(Side note: If I were to tell you this story in person he would have an English-ey slash Borat-ish sounding accent because that is how all my accents end up sounding, even though I'm pretty sure he was Swedish...Dutch?)

"There are a few key things that give a ladyboy away."  As he spoke, his Marlboro Light dangled expertly on his bottom lip in such a way that would give only the veteran smokers away.  I remember this detail only because I can't remember what he looked like due to the cloud of smoke that permanently enveloped his face.

He then proceeded to point out a tall beautiful woman dancing on the bar next to us.  She was one of those girls who make the rest of us look bad and whom I secretly hated.

"She is ladyboy, I know. First she has perfect hair and way too much make-up." Which is a wonder because in the heat I had managed to sweat off any trace of make-up I had on and my hair had that wet dog look.  Did she have her sweat glands removed when she got those DD implants? Witchcraft.

"Second, she is wearing a chunky necklace to hide her adams apple." 
"Third, she still has the male gene floating around there somewhere so she can't dance."

So in my journal I wrote, Ladyboy: a lot of make up, big necklace, bad dancer.  Right... These tips turned out to be no help at all to me because I have been back to Thailand four times since then and I still can't tell the difference.  Not that it matters because I think that is the point, and bottom line, lady or ladyboy she is still beautiful.

On my last trip to Thailand, my best friend Chris and I traveled to Phuket, where ladyboy's rule the night.  On one of our many epic nights out, we began our evening at a 5-star restaurant on the beach and then all of a sudden we were sitting in the VIP seats at Simon Cabaret, a famous drag-queen show in Thailand.  We were seated in between a loud Russian gay couple and a couple of Japanese business men. Perfect.  Needless to say it was one of the strangest experiences of our lives because in a normal drag show you can actually tell that they are queens but in this show... hard to tell.


Chris with Ms. Showgirl and Ms. GaGa (both ladyboys.)

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