the third sex

Watching a boy morph into a ladyboy is a fascinating experience. I have seen it happen many times. I can remember one spectacular example of a young boy who worked at a Patpong bar I used to visit. He was clearly effeminate, but was regarded as manly enough to heave the beer crates around and do other work that the GGs didn’t want to do, such as swabbing the floor.

I watched with great interest over the months how he grew his hair and began to wear makeup. He was good looking as a male, but not strikingly so. You would have looked at him as being an everyday sort, about five-eight, strongly built, and pleasant to speak to. The makeup began with a little eyeshadow and lipstick, but was not overwhelming.

The bar was a large open-sided one, and the attraction for me was the band that came on at 8 o’clock and opened up with some classic twangy rock’n'roll instrumentals. I would call in on my way home from the office a few evenings during the week and have a couple of drinks while I listened to the music. But as my young friend transformed I started coming in a little earlier, so that I could watch him.

The makeup became a little more elaborate and the hair became longer, the mannerisms and gestures became more feminine. I decided to switch the relationship from being on smiling terms to a conversational level. It was easier, because the bar operator switched him from doing odd jobs into serving drinks. I asked if he was taking female hormones and he said no, he wasn’t. The change was an inner one. He had wanted to be a ladyboy but while he was at school it wasn’t possible. This was his first job, and his first opportunity to become the person he wanted to be.

Gradually, I found that he was turning from being a person I could watch with an observer’s eye into somebody increasingly desirable.

He had only ever worn the routine uniform of t-shirt and jeans, but one evening she (at this point the sexual orientation seemed to change) arrived wearing a short little black dress. I pounced.

Within 15 minutes we were inside a short-time hotel and it was an explosive experience. Afterwards, she said “you the first farang man for me.” And we continued with an affair that even know makes me hot and bothered when I think about it.

Still the transformation continued. She developed a preference for kinky wear, such as long black boots and black leather. I didn’t mind, although even I found it a little disconcerting to walk through Patpong with her on our way to another evening of frenzy. After all, I do know a lot of people in this town, and a lot of people know me.

In her high heels she was almost six foot. The makeup now had become distinctive, pale with bright lipstick. She wore little dresses with fishnet stockings, or tight leather pants with chains around the waist. After several months she had outgrown the rather homely bar she worked for, and went onto cabaret. I imagine that she did well. She was classic cabaret material. I lost track of her, unfortunately. I would love to know what eventually happened to her.

So, at what point did she cease to be a boy and become a ladyboy? It was the little black dress. I can remember it now. It came to just below the knicker-line. In my mind that was the trigger-point.

At this stage she was still quite boyish. In the hotel room I lifted the dress to see white knickers underneath, and then the dress came off slowly to reveal a taught body with a tight bottom and an enormous erection. She radiated sex, yet the signals were so mixed: the beautifully made-up face and thick black hair, the girlish gestures and the boyish body. She was a boy who wanted to be a girl. A girl with the sexual drive of a boy. A boy with a girl’s face. A girl with something huge and thick and hot that a girl shouldn’t have.

For me, it was lust. Lust is not always a respecter of sexual boundaries. But I suppose it does sometimes need some pretty packaging.

Thailand’s ladyboy shows may have reached epic proportions with places such as Tiffany’s, Alcazar and Golden Dome, but their traditions go way back into history and were always very much a family show. The small travelling cabaret can still be found in Bangkok and many other cities throughout the country.

Shortly before Christmas I had photographed a ladyboy named Jenny. I hadn’t met her before; she just turned up as a friend of a friend. I got talking to Jenny and found out that her father is also a ladyboy, and that she has a 13-year-old ’sister’ who is a ladyboy too. Together they form the nucleus of a travelling ladyboy cabaret show that performs at temple fairs and community parties around Bangkok.

I came to know Jenny better as a friend, as she is a genuinely nice person, and in due course I met 13-year-old Toppi, and also their father, who if seen out in the street would pass for a middle-aged woman. The invitation was always there for me to go and see one of the cabaret shows, but they always seemed to be too far away, either on the other side of the river or at some other impractical location in this sprawling, traffic-choked city.

Then the other afternoon Jenny called to say that there was a show on that very evening, and at a location near to where I live. I had been away travelling for a week and had only just arrived home from the airport, so on the one hand all I wanted to do was get changed and relax. But on the other hand, the chance to see the show so close to home was one I didn’t want to miss. The family called for me at 7pm, and we piled into a taxi and off we went.

The venue was by the river, down a tiny little alley leading off Charoen Krung, the oldest road in Bangkok. We waited on the kerb for the other members of the troupe to arrive, and within a few minutes they turned up carrying their bags of clothes and props. So narrow was the alley that we had to walk along it in single file. Houses and fences hemmed us in, the pathway twisted and turned, and we could hear the sounds of the river only yards away. Then we came to the end of the alley, where there was a little courtyard surrounded by houses. This was to be their stage.

This was a community party arranged for the eve of Songkran, the Thai New Year. The next two days were a public holiday, and after that was the weekend. The community that lives in and around this alley were going to enjoy themselves and they had booked a band that was to play on through until the early hours. The community leaders to add a little extra spice to the evening had booked the family cabaret.

A timber house acted as a changing room for the cast, and as a rather large farang crammed into a 10-foot square room with eight ladyboys and the residents of the house, on a night when the temperature was about 35 degrees centigrade, and with an excited crowd pressing up against the doorway, I did my best to be a fly on the wall, I really did.

The performers were a very mixed bunch. Father no longer dances since he was injured in a road accident. Jenny and a couple of other girls were the glamour. There were a couple of clowns, middle-aged masculine men, although one had silicon breasts. And there was Toppi; the undisputed star of the show, not yet five foot tall and every inch the showgirl.

I watched as the makeup went on and the cast were transformed. Then I moved out into the crowd, who sat on the ground or perched on the river wall. I realised that this is how the now-famous Thai ladyboy cabaret shows must have started. Although Tiffany’s began the modern phenomenon, there have been transvestite performers in Thailand throughout history. They too would have played at temple fairs and village fetes, and so Jenny’s family were simply carrying on an age-old tradition.

There is a formula to ladyboy shows. You have the glamorous dancers performing traditional Siamese dance, and then you have a clown act. Then there is lip-syncing to a couple of popular songs, and another clown act, followed by a grand finale. The audience were in raptures, right from the moment the first dancers appeared with tiny little Toppi in the centre. The clowns of course drew huge laughter and applause with their ribald act. I found myself laughing aloud.

Payment for the cabaret comes out of community funds, but the audience also likes to tip performers, calling them across during their act to hand over banknotes, usually 20 baht (50 cents), or even running onto the stage to hand the money over.

Then the show was over, the performers were back into their street clothes within 10 minutes, and in a final burst of goodwill and cheering we were making our way back down the alley to Charoen Krung, to find taxis. As a family evening out, it had certainly been a little different.