Free Gaysia by Benjamin Law Page A

earning a lot?’
    â€˜No, not necessarily,’ he said. ‘Because they’re not “real” girls, people don’t really accept them. So usually, they can’t be famous in Thailand.’
    â€˜Couldn’t they just try to pass as ladies, though?’
    â€˜Well …’ Eve said quietly, ‘there is their voice.’
    â€˜Oh.’
    â€˜I mean, you’re right,’ she said quickly. ‘If they walked past you, you’re really not going to know. But if they speak …’
    â€˜You can tell with all of them?’ I said.
    â€˜Almost all of them. Eighty per cent.’
    Ann leaned over to Eve and whispered something in Thai. Both women laughed. ‘Okay, okay, maybe ninety per cent,’ Eve said. ‘Plus, they’re taller than normal ladies. Thai ladies are not that tall. Their shoulders are wider too.’
    After breakfast, I joined the girls for rehearsal. Ann ran through her notes and Keang led them through their steps for the televised finale. Today they were dressed uniformly again, but this time they wore standard-issue Miss Tiffany’s t-shirts coupled with micro miniskirts. Over the speakers, the opening disco beats of the gay anthem ‘I Am What I Am’ filled the room. The lyrics were empowering, but I would hear the song so often in the coming weeks of rehearsals that it would seep into my dreams. I’d spend my waking hours wishing I had a power drill to extract it from my brain.
    After going through walks, poses and struts, Keang stopped the music. He told half of the girls to sit down so he could concentrate on one batch at a time. A brunette girl – adorably cute like a cartoon chipmunk – sat next to me. Contestant #10 – Parnrapee Tipjariyaudom; nickname: Noon – wore giant gold hoop earrings and arranged her long hair in a shiny, horse-like ponytail.
    â€˜Look,’ Noon said, making a sad face and pointing to her feet. Her stiletto was damaged, its cork heel split right through the middle like an old carrot. It was irreparable.
    â€˜Oh man,’ I said. ‘That sucks.’
    â€˜Yes,’ Noon said. ‘It sucks a lot .’
    Noon was twenty-three years old and tall. Her voice was powdery like talc. She had been living by herself in Thailand since she was a teenager, and was now studying for a business degree and thinking about a career in finance. When she wasyoung, Noon’s parents had migrated to the United States without her to start up a Thai restaurant in Massachusetts, while her sister lived in England. Each year since then, Noon had flown to the States for three months to earn enough US dollars at her parents’ restaurant – around 200,000 baht (6500 US dollars) – to support her studies back home. It was a strange family situation, but Noon was purposefully vague about why it had come about. I suspected part of the reason was Noon herself.
    â€˜I told my mum I don’t feel like a boy when I was seven or eight,’ Noon said. ‘They made me dress like a boy, but inside I was thinking, “This is not me.” My mum gave me a hug. She cried. She felt pity for me, she felt sorry.’ Noon’s father was more hostile. Because Noon was their only son, he refused to believe she was a woman for years and years. ‘So now my family don’t have a son,’ Noon said, a little sadly. ‘My dad had hoped for a son so much.’
    At sixteen, Noon started a course of female hormones. By eighteen, she had breast implants, paid for by her parents. At twenty, she underwent complete genital sex-reassignment, half-funded by her, half by her parents. That procedure alone cost roughly 300,000 baht (9700 US dollars). She estimated that over the years she’d spent around a million baht (32,300 US dollars) on her four surgical procedures: nose job, breast work, eye work and sex-change.
    Noon was staring at me intensely. ‘You want to see something?’