Lady Boys - approximate lady boy population?

[kerryk]

Writing short article and need some approximate data. I figure there about 1.3 million lady boys in Thailand. Not just show girls but the whole lady boy population. Am I close? About 2% of the population? Any ideas?

[Totster]

Harry Palmer could have helped... if he was still here...

totster

[PeaceBlondie]

There's no way to tell. There are no really reliable statistics in Thailand, so make up your own and attribute them to Prof. Wichai Samsatapongabong, Ph.D.

Wild guess - 15% of the male population over age 12.

[solo siam]

Writing short article and need some approximate data.  I figure there about 1.3 million lady boys in Thailand.  Not just show girls but the whole lady boy population.  Am I close?  About 2% of the population?  Any ideas?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

1 in 25 seems way too much, even here in Phuket espcially since that would be 1 in 25 of all men, whatever age.

[sbk]

True, and most ladyboys gravitate towards tourist areas. Out in the country you don't see that many as they tend to move on once they finish school. So, I think,in tourist areas, you see a disproportionate amount of ladyboys compared to the total population. Ask one of the guys who lives way out in the boonies how many live in their village, compared to the population and extrapolate from that.

[PeaceBlondie]

True, and most ladyboys gravitate towards tourist areas. Out in the country you don't see that many as they tend to move on once they finish school. So, I think,in tourist areas, you see a disproportionate amount of ladyboys compared to the total population. Ask one of the guys who lives way out in the boonies how many live in their village, compared to the population and extrapolate from that.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The province I worked in, not a tourist area, was at least 15%.

[sbk]

Really? Seems very high, here where I live local ladyboys are quite rare. I only know of one or two and I probably am acquainted with at least 500 people (hubby has a very large family )

[solo siam]

A search on google suggests that it looks probably about 200,000 ladyboys in Thailand, which would mean I guess around 1 in 150 blokes are ladyboys, which would seem to be a reasonable guess.

[Tywais]

You need to be clear on what constitutes a "ladyboy". Are you using the term for gay in general, or including transsexuals/transvestites. There are many ladyboys that dress the role (transsexuals and even transvestites) only for financial reasons but are not ladyboys in the sense that they are gay.

Just re-read your post and you say "not show-girls" so my above post maybe indefacto including show girls.

Edited October 8, 2005 by tywais

[PeaceBlondie]

Original post seemed to suggest that they wanted an estimate of every male in Thailand who self-identifies as lady boy or katoey. As was said on another thread, it's a state of mind, not an activity, so it matters not if they cross dress, transgender, soprano voice, top or bottom, etc. I'd say it's well over 5%, which is the accepted number in the repressed West. I'd say 10% of the Thai males think of themselves as what we might call 'gay'.

Nobody knows. We're all making wild guesses.

[Sir Burr]

The accepted figure used to be 1 in 10 males were gay, which I always thought was too high. Once the USA did it's population census which also asked sexual orientation, it indicated 15 in 1000.

The gays in the US were incensed because they knew that the politicians who had courted their vote (10% being statisticly significant), would now consider them statisticly irrelevent.

Edited October 10, 2005 by Sir Burr

[DdS]

In my grade 9 class, 3 katoeys out of 14 boys; grade 10, 2 of 12; grade 11, 1 of 9; grade 12, 1 of 8. Am not counting non-effeminate openly gay boys.

[The Coder]

In my grade 9 class, 3 katoeys out of 14 boys; grade 10, 2 of 12; grade 11, 1 of 9; grade 12, 1 of 8.  Am not counting non-effeminate openly gay boys.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

So 16% in your observation which coincidentally syncs up with Peace Blondie. There definitely is something fishy about the very low published figures versus the very high noticeable percentage. Where I go, there is always a noticeable percentage and you can't even count the percentage that are so good they just fly under the radar. The most hard to believe stat was when a Chiang Mai school added a katoey restroom a year ago while at the same time claimed the entire high school had but 3 katoeys. Hmm... Don't know about that!

[Crushdepth]

True, and most ladyboys gravitate towards tourist areas.

I don't think this is true. I live in an obscure part of town and there are 5-6 outside my soi on the main road every night.

You need to be clear on what constitutes a "ladyboy".

It always seemed fairly clear to me...

[ajarntrade]

To me, it doesn't matter how many there are. If there were only 1 in the whole country that would be too many.

They are annoying as hel_l.

I believe most have SERIOUS mental health problems.

They are an embarassment to the gay community, IMHO.

ajarntrade

[OxfordWill]

So, following that logic, mentally retarded kids are an embarassment to ...humanity?

[PeaceBlondie]

In my grade 9 class, 3 katoeys out of 14 boys; grade 10, 2 of 12; grade 11, 1 of 9; grade 12, 1 of 8.  Am not counting non-effeminate openly gay boys.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

So 16% in your observation which coincidentally syncs up with Peace Blondie. There definitely is something fishy about the very low published figures versus the very high noticeable percentage. Where I go, there is always a noticeable percentage and you can't even count the percentage that are so good they just fly under the radar. The most hard to believe stat was when a Chiang Mai school added a katoey restroom a year ago while at the same time claimed the entire high school had but 3 katoeys. Hmm... Don't know about that!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

When that Chiang Mai (commercial/vocational college) school claimed they were adding a katoey restroom, I asked the ladyboy sitting next to me about it. He said the ladyboys he grew up with in the nearby province (where I taught for two years) were not just capable of defending themselves, but of possibly trying to lure straight boys into the toilet stalls for some pleasurable entertainment! I noticed later that some katoeys (wearing boys' clothes, ages as low as 12) routinely use the girls' restrooms, with no problem.

I taught at a Chiang mai commercial college, and they weren't segregated by their love of the English language. Not only were a disproportionate number of my 15 to 20 year old students who wore boy uniforms openly gay, several of the students wearing girl uniforms had male genitals! Or so the katoey in the front row volunteered to demonstrate with the 'girl' sitting behind him. That same girl showed himself on the family tree as 'he/she.' Likewise, at that college, the obvious katoeys in boys' uniforms used the girls' restroom.

Edited October 22, 2005 by PeaceBlondie

[DdS]

Agree wih PeaceBlondie that the number of ladyboys in commercial schools is much higher - a higher percentage of straight boys have at this stage gone to technical schools, and commercial schools offer subjects such as hospitality which are apparently more likely to attract katoeys.

Just to clarify, the stats I gave above of the no. of katoeys in my grade 9-12 classes apply to a government matayom school, not a commercial school.

[jerry921]

The subject of kathoeys came up in a conversation with a Thai friend of mine (late 30's, not femme, orientation unknown). He said that being a ladyboy was something of a fad now in highschool, that there were more kathoeys in high school now than when he was in highschool.

Since I tend to define sexual orientation based on who one does what with, I'm wondering how serious some of these boys are about it all.

Obviously some of them are out there having unsafe sex, getting infected, and dying, but does anyone think a significant percentage of the high-school-age kathoeys are not sexually active?