Chapter 5:

Patchara; Streetwalker

My story is different to that of the other ladies because my desire to become a woman does not come from within. I regret having my penis removed.

I was born to a soldier father and a housewife mother in the Ubon Ratchathani province in the northeast region of Thailand. My mother became pregnant with me when she was only 17. Like many Thai peasant women, she quit school when she was young. Her parents didn’t see any point in educating her because she would be married off to a man and dependent on him for the rest of her life anyway.

We lived in a military camp until I was five, before moving into a rented house that was surrounded by rice fields. My little brother and sister were born a few years later. When I was a young boy, I didn’t feel like I should have been born a girl. In fact, I played like a boy and was very active. I was an A student when it came to my gym classes. Be it volleyball, basketball, Krabi Krabong (sword and staff) or running, I enjoyed them all. Others viewed me as a mild-mannered boy and I was often mistaken for a female tomboy because of my sweet face and fair skin.

My childhood was fairly happy. That is until one evening, when out of the blue, mae arrived home from the market with a mysterious grin on her face. She grabbed por by the arm, pulled him over to the bamboo bench, and excitedly announced that she had wonderful news for us. She had met a man at the market who worked for an employment company. He told her that he could secure her a job as a maid in a foreign country. Mae began to list off all the things we would be able to buy with the money she would send home from abroad. The only catch was that she would have to seek a loan from a government welfare programme in order to pay the agent a handling fee. Por asked her how much she needed and he nearly choked on her reply. The agent was offering to liaise with prospective employers, acquire a work permit and pay for flights, all in exchange for 100,000 baht. Before por could question mae about the man’s credentials, she carried on with her story. Apparently the agent came from Bangkok and had been very polite to her. He was well dressed, wearing a suit and a tie. He said that it was his job to set people up in employment abroad and he claimed to have already made arrangements for countless others. Mae was completely taken in by this man. Por seemed a little hesitant at first but her enthusiasm eventually got the better of him and he agreed to procure the money.

Three days later, mae handed the money over to the agent. And it didn’t take him long to vanish into thin air. It turned out that he was operating an elaborate scam and had already robbed over one million baht from several other villagers using the same pretence. Mae was devastated to have been taken in by him and to have lost so much money. Today, such fraudsters still use similar schemes to prey on naïve villagers in up- country provinces.

Mae’s mistake caused a rift in her marriage. The debt set our family back tremendously. Por and mae started arguing all the time and my home life was never the same after that. He blamed her for incurring an insurmountable debt in his name. Mae eventually decided to go to Bangkok to find work and try to repay the money. She had never had a job before so I thought it was extremely brave of her to embark on this mission. But with hindsight, I think she went to Bangkok to get away from my father. He had become verbally abusive towards her and she knew it was only a matter of time before this abuse turned physical.

The distance between my parents allowed por to introduce another wife into our home. This woman had two children from a previous marriage, and he moved all three of them into our house without even discussing it with me and my siblings beforehand. He asked us to call his new wife maeliang (stepmother). My brother took it the worst. He was unable to hide the resentment he felt towards her and he called her the worst names imaginable.

In contrast, I was indifferent to the invasion of our home. I didn’t protest against por replacing mae. I considered it his business and I didn’t feel like I should have a say in it. Besides, his new wife was never nasty to me and she seemed to understand her place in the scheme of things so we managed to coexist. Por ’s new wife needed someone to support her and her two children after her husband passed away and my father had probably represented her only chance of survival. She couldn’t afford to be too picky either because she wasn’t a first-time wife. Usually Thai men find women who have been widowed, divorced or already have children, less desirable as wives or girlfriends, unless they are just looking for sex. These women are considered ‘used goods’. Bearing this in mind, my stepmother was lucky to find my father. Mae learned of her replacement during a visit home. Like me, she didn’t object to my father’s actions. But she certainly didn’t take the news well and she never came home again. Any semblance of a normal family life came to an end before I was 12 years old.

I began spending more and more time with my friends. I often stayed in their houses several nights in a row without coming home. Por never complained though—probably because our one-storey house was far too small for seven people. I became more and more emotionally dependent on my friends.

During my early school days, I was a member of a group of about eight boys. One day our ringleader bragged that he had managed to get hold of a porn film. He dared us all to watch it with him, threatening to call us kathoeys at school if we didn’t. Sex education was unheard of in my school so I had no knowledge of sex up until that point. I hadn’t a clue what to expect, but I was intrigued nonetheless. One of the boys said that his parents worked until evening time and that we could use his house. We decided to skip school the following day and watch the porn film at his house.

The next day, we all piled into the master bedroom and locked the door behind us. Grainy images of naked, gyrating grown men and women began to materialise before me. I found it unsightly. A deathly silence descended upon the room as we glanced at one another nervously. One by one, the boys began unzipping their brown school shorts and taking out their penises. They started to masturbate, or chak wao (flying a kite) as it is known colloquially. I sat perfectly still, not knowing what to do. I just watched on in bewilderment as the boys continued to vigorously massage themselves.

After that incident, I felt a little out of place around my group of friends. I found myself preferring the company of girls because they seemed more demure and caring than boys. Besides, my male friends had all been D students. They didn’t pay attention at school and received horrible grades. I guess I just wanted to be around a different type of people. So I later became a member of a group largely made up of girls. The more time I spent with my new friends, the more I found myself absorbing their feminine ways. We went out to nightclubs a lot and danced the night away but we always managed to maintain good grades.

I had my first shared sexual experience with one of my female friends and to this day she remains the only woman I have ever slept with. My first thought after we slept together was that I didn’t understand why all the other boys were so obsessed with sex. I was a quiet boy and this girl probably only wanted me to be her first because I didn’t intimidate her like the other boys. Our first time was more of an accident than anything else but we remained friends afterwards.

I always looked forward to going to school and meeting my friends. It wasn’t that I enjoyed studying, but I liked the feeling of being part of a large group. I had many friends during my school days but I wasn’t overly close to any of them. I just preferred going out after school with them to staying in doing my homework. The more time I spent with my friends, the less I spent either at school or at home, and I finally lost all interest in studying. At the peak of my rebellious years, or at least what I consider to have been rebellious years, my friends and I organised illegal motorcycle races. We would speed along the main roads and into the night-time without wearing any helmets or protective gear. We were a big pain to the villagers, whose sleep was disturbed by the sounds of roaring motorcycle engines and excited screams. The police put up barricades in the streets to try and arrest us one night but luckily I wasn’t involved in that particular race.

Shortly before I turned 15, I stopped going to school. This turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes of my life. I initially thought that I would spend my extra free time with my friends but I found myself filling the spare hours with worries about my future. Before that, I’d never given any serious thought to the future, but the more I thought about it now, the more it occurred to me that it didn’t look too promising. All of a sudden it hit me that, when summed up, my life amounted to very little so far. I began staying at home more and more. My father hardly noticed and paid very little attention to me. I felt like a burst dam, with feelings of doom and gloom flooding my mind day and night. I didn’t know what to do with myself. Eventually, unable to see any other way out, I decided to take my own life.

I waited until nobody was home so I would have a better chance of succeeding. I took a can of insecticide out of the cupboard and sprayed it into a glass until a thin layer of liquid had formed at the bottom. I held the glass up to the light as I struggled with my conscience. Taking your own life is considered one of the greatest sins in Buddhism and you are said to spend your next 500 incarnations repeating the suicide attempt. But I didn’t care anymore. All I could think of was whether or not I’d be happier if I died. I swallowed the contents of the glass in a single gulp. Within seconds, a wave of dizziness washed over me and I collapsed on the ground. The next thing I remember was waking up in the same spot where I had collapsed, with no idea of how much time had elapsed. In the wake of my failed suicide attempt, I learned that it is useless to dwell on your past mistakes. I needed to get on with my life.

I decided to move to Bangkok to live with my mother. She was working as a hostess in a restaurant in the city. Her job involved making small talk with the customers and drinking with them at the bar. In addition to her salary, she earned commission on the drinks that were bought for her. At 33, she looked young for her age and she was still a looker. I never asked her if she went out with her customers after work. Some things are better left unasked and I didn’t want to raise a topic that might cause offence.

When I saw all the opportunities on offer in Bangkok and how developed the city was, I started to think more carefully about the kind of life I wanted to live, and in particular, how I wanted to express myself. Mae got me a job as a waiter in the same restaurant as her. I was impressed by how nicely the patrons dressed. They arrived for dinner carrying all sorts of impressive accessories and gadgets, such as fashionable handbags, top-of-the-range phones, and high-quality, brand-named clothing. The women all looked so beautiful to me. They complimented me on my nawan (sweet face) and mistook me for a tomboy because I wore a simple white t-shirt and slacks while waiting on the tables.

A few weeks into the job I met a man who was several years older than me, and he became my boyfriend. His name was Num and he worked as a go-go boy in Soi Twilight on Surawong Road. He introduced me to the gay scene in Bangkok.

We went to Lumpini Park one Sunday and met a group of gay men and kathoeys who gathered there to form a kind of social network. They came from various walks of life, with some of them engaging in prostitution. By socialising with kathoeys , I slowly became more feminine in both my appearance and conduct. They told me that I had a sweet face and that I would be very suay (beautiful) if I wore make-up. They even applied my make-up for me. I began wearing cosmetics all the time and I even grew my hair long so that they would accept me. I was delighted whenever my newfound friends complimented me on my looks. I suppose the acceptance and admiration I got from them became a little like a drug.

Num welcomed all these new developments. He didn’t mind that I was becoming more feminine as he has a feminine side too. He likes to apply make-up before getting up on stage in the go-go bars to dance in his skimpy briefs. He told me it makes him feel more confident. Num is naturally a little effeminate but he sometimes has to put on a more macho front to attract buyers. His mamasan divides the go-go boys into two groups according to the tastes of the patrons. Boys with fair skin and a slender build appeal more to Asian patrons, while boys with dark skin and an athletic build appeal more to Westerners. However, this is more of a rough division than a steadfast rule.

As soon as I had saved up some money, I bought hair extensions. When I made my first trip home to see my father I had long hair and I worried about how he would react. But to my surprise he didn’t even raise an eyebrow. I realised that the money I’d sent him when he’d been in need had clearly bought his silence. However, my transformation didn’t go completely unnoticed because he commented, in passing, that I was free to live my life any way I liked so long as I did so without troubling others. Mae’s reaction was just as indifferent. I’ve clearly inherited my easygoing, just-accept-life-and-whatever-it-throws-at-you attitude from my parents.

When I returned to Bangkok I started openly cross-dressing. The first outfit I wore out in public was a modest white shirt and a long skirt, similar to the uniform of a female university student. Despite my attempts at keeping a low profile, my height gave my gender away and strange and unkind men called me a kathoey and a tut.

Shortly after this I began taking hormone pills. I injected a liquid combination of Progynon and Proluton into the top of my hip. The injections cost around 250 baht per shot and they helped to fill out my buttocks and breasts, giving me a wonderfully feminine shape. I’ve heard that these shots can be dangerous for your health but I try not to think about this. I do it for the sake of my feminine identity.

My friends advised me to make sure to buy the shots that are labelled ‘from Germany’ because they give faster and better results than the cheaper shots that are made in India (which cost 100 baht). I didn’t need a doctor’s prescription to buy them. I just went to the big pharmacies that are located around Siriraj Hospital and asked for them there. At first I went to a clinic where the doctor injected me for a fee of 50 baht, but later I learned to inject myself twice a month. With such an overwhelming amount of female sex hormones coursing through my veins, I suffered from terrible dizzy spells. I eventually gave up the injections, fearing that they would prevent me from functioning normally, but I still take five hormone pills a day.

The hormone pills caused me to wake up every morning overcome by nausea. I had to stick my fingers down my throat to bring up whatever was in my stomach. I lost handfuls of hair too. My body hair became less visible and my muscles less pronounced. My breasts grew bigger and my skin became fairer. I had a lean body and the veins on my arms and hands became less visible. All in all, it was an unpleasant physical transition for me, but the more womanly I became, the more my friends praised me. I started to wear more revealing outfits, such as tube tops and short skirts.

You have to be at least 18 years old to be a go-go dancer in Thailand, so on my 18th birthday I went to a go-go bar to apply for a job. I needed a well-paid job as my cost of living had increased so dramatically, and a friend, whom I had met in Lumpini Park, told me about the best-known ladyboy go-go bar in Soi Patpong.

The mamasan asked to see copies of my family census and ID card. She told me to go out and buy a bikini and a pair of high heels, and I started working right away.

There were two types of ladyboys on offer at the bar—full and partial women—unlike other bars which offered a mixture of natural women and surgically transformed ladyboys. We partial women had to learn to taep (to hide our penises between our legs) because we danced in bikinis and it would be unsightly for customers to see women with beautiful faces and breasts gyrating on the stage with bulging crotches. My colleagues taught me the art of taep. Standing upright, I slowly spread my legs and pulled my penis back as far as I could, all the while cradling my scrotum. You have to be careful not to pull too hard or too fast or you will suffer greatly. I then tucked the whole package between my legs, carefully securing it with transparent tape, before closing my legs and putting my bikini bottoms back on. You can usually spot the novice go-go dancers by those who still have small bulges. The more experienced ladyboys, who have taken female hormones, are better able to hide their penises because the hormones have made them smaller and more droopy, making their crotches appear flatter. Some don’t even need to use adhesive tape so long as they keep their legs close together at all times. Some have their testicles surgically removed to reduce the pain and hassle of taep -ing. Others pinch the skin above their hidden penises and hold it together with superglue to give the appearance of vaginal lips. This practice is known as tang klip . This can look especially convincing if customers are looking at ladyboys’ crotches either from above or at eye-level.

The hassle involved in this elaborate deception doesn’t end there. If you go to the toilet while taep -ed, you have to endure the agony of peeling the adhesive tape off only to have to reapply it when you are finished. Skin and dry blood always came off with the tape no matter how carefully I peeled it away. Some go-go dancers are allergic to the materials used in the adhesive tape and they develop unsightly rashes as a result. They use a type of tape unsuitable for human skin to achieve extra secure fastening. I shaved off my pubic hair to reduce the hassle involved in the taep routine.

I started in the bar as a regular girl, working from 6.00 p.m. to 2.00 a.m. every night. I had to attend a doctor once a month and come away with a clean bill of health. The other type of girls employed were the casual ones who could come and go as they pleased. They weren’t paid a salary so they concentrated on selling their bodies to make money from the fee for sex they negotiated outside of the bar. The regulars, on the other hand, made money from their set salary, commission for drinks and the fee for sex. The bar made most of its profit from bar fines, where customers were charged 500 baht to take a girl away with them.

Most of the clients who came to our bar knew that it was a kathoey bar. These gentlemen came in search of what Thais call phuying mee ngoo (women with snakes). The general modus operandi went like this. A man would beckon me over to sit with him. He would start touching my body and putting his hands down my bikini bottom looking for my penis. I could openly sell myself as a partial woman as opposed to hiding my true identity which requires the skill of deceit. I mostly went out with clients who preferred women with penises. We took turns playing the male role. They would sometimes masturbate me or perform oral sex on me; other times I would penetrate them with a banana, as all the hormones I was taking made it increasingly difficult for me to use my penis.

I rarely went out with clients who didn’t know I had a penis. It never ended well. At best, they would pay me for my time and politely ask me to leave. At worst, they would kick me out of their hotel room and threaten me with all kinds of violence. When these unpleasant incidents happened, I honestly didn’t take it personally. It merely upset me that I was missing out on the opportunity to make money.

I got on well during my first few months as a go-go dancer. It didn’t bother me a bit that I still had my penis intact; the thought of having it surgically removed never crossed my mind because I was making so much money as it was. I intended to capitalise on this niche market for as long as I could. But my colleagues repeatedly encouraged me to complete my physical transition. They had notions about partial women being inferior to those with full female bodies. Spurred on by my colleagues, I had breast implants shortly after I turned 18. I thought I’d made the right decision because my new breasts would make my body more appealing. I had to get my mother to accompany me to the hospital and sign the consent form because I was under 20, which is the official legal age for such surgery in Thailand. I was supporting her financially so she probably thought it wise not to object to my decision.

By then, mae already knew what I did for a living. One day, after returning from a visit to her friends in Ubon, she realised that she had misplaced the key to our room so she phoned me. I told her to come to the bar and wait for me there so that we could go home together at closing-time. Mae took a seat in the bar and calmly watched me dance. She didn’t order me to stop working because she knew how much money I was making. I could do honest jobs but I would never make even nearly as much. For someone like me, who hasn’t finished upper secondary level, honest jobs mean badly paid, boring factory work.

After I got my breast implants, I stopped wearing bras for a few weeks because the doctor told me that if you wear them too soon after your operation the breasts will become moulded into the shape of the cups. One of my friends has breasts that are too high up and close together because she likes to wear push-up bras. Fake breasts aren’t very jiggly in comparison to natural ones. If you don’t massage them diligently after the operation then a web-like tissue can form and attach itself to the silicone bags, rooting them in place like two hardened lumps. I massaged mine every day for three months to make sure this didn’t happen. My new breasts cost me 40,000 baht.

In December of the same year, I decided to get rid of my penis. In the locker-room at work, the other ladyboys seemed to be obsessed with who had and who hadn’t had work done on their bodies. Having a fully female body elevated you to a higher level in that little world. I eventually decided to go through with the operation, partly because of the peer pressure and partly because I just couldn’t handle the daily torture of hiding my penis any longer. While I was still an in-between, I rarely masturbated and when I did I always stopped short of ejaculating. Colleagues told me that if I masturbated regularly I would become more manly. I guess you could say that I did have a relationship of sorts with my penis. I didn’t decide to have it removed because I felt a profound hatred for it. I was indifferent to it. I was eventually swayed by the mounting peer pressure, as well as the thought that life would be much easier without it.

When I first moved to Bangkok, I questioned how I should express myself—straight man, gay man or ladyboy? But rather than make up my own mind, I let other people do that for me. I decided to change myself in order to be accepted by my peers and to be able to identify myself with something—with anything! I didn’t know myself very well. But I was sure at the time that I didn’t want to continue on in this no man’s land, as neither a man nor a woman. I certainly didn’t want to wait until I was in my thirties or forties to have a sex-change operation so it was a now-or-never situation for me.

When I admitted to my doctor that I was under 20, he told me that he wouldn’t be able to perform the surgery unless my mother signed a consent form. I knew if I postponed the operation I would end up squandering my savings on other things so I decided to call mae and ask her to accompany me to the clinic.

Mae said she was okay with whatever decision I made. In fact, for as long as I can remember she has never been very motherly, telling me what to do or what was best for me. Por is the same in this regard. It was as if after having brought me into this world and given me a roof over my head, they felt their work was done and that I should be allowed to wander freely. My parents knew that my brother had developed a drug problem yet they never considered an intervention or tried to help him in any way. My family just coexisted and took each other as we were. That was all good and well but how I wished that I’d had someone to offer me just a little bit of guidance in life.

My mother readily signed the consent form and the doctor scheduled the operation for two days later, on 26 December. Once the date had been set, I asked my mother and my boyfriend for a loan of some money to help fund the 80,000-baht operation. My doctor had become well known in the field for offering free sex-change operations to a select few candidates when he had first opened the clinic. He now offered one of the most attractive prices in Bangkok. A high-end clinic might demand anything up to 150,000 baht for the exact same surgery.

When I woke up after my operation, I couldn’t feel anything below my waistline. I was completely numb. On the first day, all I could do was wriggle my toes a little. The nurse cautioned me against moving at all. I looked down and saw a tube connecting my lower body to a urine bag. The pain didn’t kick in until the second day, when an overwhelming ache swept over my body, and I had to ask the doctor for morphine.

I spent a week recovering in the hospital. I had next to no appetite for the entire time. I couldn’t use the bathroom and the mere thought of a having a bowel movement scared me because moving my limbs was so painful. My mother watched over me for the first two days but I spent the next five alone. The more time I spent bedridden and in such pain, the louder the little voice at the back of my mind became. I shouldn’t have done this to myself. This inner struggle consumed me for five long days and it was one of the most depressing periods of my life.

The first time I saw my new body I wasn’t over-whelmed by happiness like other ladyboys usually are. My ‘wound’ was still swollen and misshapen looking. I found it unsightly. It was strange to look down and not see my penis there any longer. I wondered what this body would look like when I was old and sagging.

Today, I still think about my penis and sometimes wish that I could have it back. This longing for my former self creeps into my thoughts no matter how much I try and shake it off. Some of my colleagues are happy with their in-between bodies. They have told me that people who undergo gender transformations tend to have a shorter life expectancy and often don’t make it to their 50th or 60th birthday. Whether or not this is true, I don’t know, but I find the prospect unsettling.

I didn’t have long to dwell on my lost penis because, having used up all my money on the operation, I had to go back to work as soon as possible. After I was released from the hospital, I spent another seven days recovering at home. My colleagues usually took a minimum of a month off work to recover but I couldn’t afford such a luxury.

Before returning to the bar, I continued to diligently insert dilators into my wound as the doctor had instructed. I was given two different sized dilators. I would sit on the floor and spread my legs wide. I inserted the smaller one first, as deep as I could, and after a few hours I replaced it with the bigger one. I used the heel of my shoe as a hammer to make sure that the dilator was pushed in as deep as it could go. Every time I stood up after this routine, blood gushed down my inner thighs. I was slowly eroding my insides in order to deepen my cavity. When I showered, I pushed the shower head up into my opening to make it deeper; the appearance of blood reassuring me that it was working. The dilator and the water pressure tore my unhealed insides even further. Despite the pain and the blood loss, I kept repeating this routine. All I could think about was the extra money I would be able to earn with my new body. I continued to use the dilator for two months after my operation. The fact that I had sex regularly with customers meant that I didn’t have to use the dilators as much as some ladyboys do.

I went back to work before the doctor had even removed my stitches. My wound still bled whenever I inserted the dilators. The dribble of warm blood added to the searing pain that engulfed my abdomen when I danced. I used sanitary napkins to absorb the blood. I tried to keep smiling in spite of the pain because I needed money to pay the rent, or else my landlord would kick me out of my room.

On that first night back at work, I was lucky to be bought by an Asian man. I didn’t tell him that I had only recently had my penis removed and that the wound hadn’t yet healed. When we arrived at the hotel room, I turned off the light so that he wouldn’t be disgusted by the sight of my blood. He wasn’t very forceful during intercourse so it didn’t hurt too much. Nonetheless, I had to use toilet paper to absorb the blood that began flowing when he penetrated me.

As far as sexual pleasure goes, I don’t really feel anything anymore. I still have some sensation left on my urethra, and if it’s stimulated the feeling is a little like when the head of my penis was touched in the past. My scars are hidden under my pubic hair. It took two months for my body to fully recover from the operation, but my mind was a different matter altogether.

In general, I find farang men much kinkier than Thais. I once met one who was into golden showers. He asked me to drink a lot of water and to then pee into his mouth and all over his body. I found it somewhat amusing that someone could be so aroused by such a bizarre act. Another memorable request was to slap a man across the face and then spank him hard. I sat on an armchair while he draped his torso across my lap, his face turned downwards. He used his hands and feet to support his body weight. He told me to spank him as hard as I could until his buttocks were red and my hand was too sore to continue. Another farang took me shopping for some womanly items. I thought he wanted to make me look extra pretty but it turned out he was more interested in dolling himself up with his purchases.

The strangest client I ever had was a Westerner who bought both me and my colleague. When we got to the hotel room, he placed five dildos, in order of size—from large to enormous—on a table and told us that for every dildo we could take up our anus he would pay us 1,000 baht each. My colleague and I glanced at each other nervously. We had expected him to ask us to pair up like most men do. But I never deny a customer’s request, no matter how strange it may be. I pushed the smallest dildo into my anus, and the man duly handed me 1,000 baht. I then inserted the next one into my friend’s anus. We moaned with feigned pleasure. The man laughed like a mischievous child. He circled us, self-gratifying himself with one hand while he spanked us with the other. I had to forcefully push the third dildo into my anus and when I looked down I saw blood dripping onto the carpet. My colleague and I knew that we couldn’t go on because the fifth dildo was the width of an adult’s arm.

Some of my customers were drug addicts and they occasionally asked me to indulge with them. The most popular drugs seemed to be ‘ice’ (a methamphetamine), marijuana and cocaine. Ice, which is the more expensive cousin of Yaba (otherwise known as the ‘crazy drug’) is especially popular among wealthy Thais. You can either burn ice and inhale it or dissolve it in water and inject it. My clients believed that the drug would improve their sexual performance. I’m not an addict though and I never spent my own money on drugs.

The easiest clients I had were the ones who paid me to cuddle or to masturbate them. To be honest, I can bring myself to do anything so long as I focus on the money. I’m not picky about my customers either. All I care about is making as much money as possible. I never went out with customers for long and I did only short term or overnight options.

I used to have a farang patron before I had my penis removed. He sent me a monthly allowance and used to take me out to nice places. But he liked me with my penis. He stopped calling me after he learned that I’d had it removed. Not only had I lost a patron but I was taken out less frequently too. Most of the customers came to the bar looking for in-between ladyboys. Once they reached down into my bikini bottoms and found nothing there, they lost interest in me. I later decided to become a casual girl at the bar, which meant that I could come and go whenever I wanted without having to worry about being on time and punching my card. I had never been one of the top girls anyway. There were lots of gorgeous kathoey dancers with better interpersonal skills and more enthusiasm than me. I was no match for them. I usually made about 2,000 baht for a quickie at the bar but I didn’t get bought every night, and I got bought even less after having my penis removed.

I decided to start working on my own in the hope of compensating for the money I was losing to kathoeys with penises at the bar. I started wandering around Patpong, trying to bag myself buyers. I made eye contact with farangs who I thought might be interested in my service. Whenever a man came up talking to me I would proposition him. I also visited certain underground hotel bars on Sukhumvit Road which were well known as pick-up spots. The bars were a great place to meet and negotiate. I would go in as a customer and buy myself a drink, after which I was free to approach whoever I wanted and try to sell my body. I had a few one-liners that I practised.

‘You like me?’

‘Want me to go with you?’

‘Where you stay?’

If the man agreed to my offer, I would ask him how much he was willing to pay me. I also worked as a streetwalker, sometimes walking around the Nana area in Sukhumvit Soi 4 and Lumpini Park.

I was arrested for prostitution on a few occasions. The Lumpini police are probably the most devoted of all the police in Bangkok when it comes to arresting prostitutes. Every time I was arrested, I was fined 1,000 baht and released with a receipt. If I didn’t have money to pay the fine I was put in a cell. Some police officers even asked me to call them after they released me, but I never did. I knew they would expect to be serviced for free.

These days I make a habit of going to a beauty salon in Soi Twilight to get my hair styled. Soi Twilight is now known as the gay town across the other two red-light districts of Patpong and ‘Japan town’ Thaniya. But in the past, Soi Twilight was best known for its many beauty salons which catered for working girls. I usually apply my make-up myself but on nights when I am feeling lazy I pay to have my face done as well. The salon I go to is owned by Chinese ladies, and their staff are either gay or kathoey. The customers are mostly male and female prostitutes. The owners always have food laid out on the table for the customers to share. Some of the clients bring daughters or nieces along and I enjoy playing with them. The salon feels like a gathering place for friends and acquaintances, and we gossip and discuss everything, from who went out with a black man last night to who has had surgery lately.

It was here that I met my agent who introduced me to the world of online prostitution. I was sitting in front of the salon one day, petting a stray cat, when a man came over and started talking to me. After we had exchanged pleasantries, he asked me about my birth gender. I told him I was a kathoey and he said that he couldn’t believe his eyes. He told me that if I wanted to make some extra money I should call him on his cell phone. He handed me his business card, which had nothing else printed on it but his nickname and phone number. He was very vague about the details of the job but I guessed that it had something to do with prostitution. He told me to keep the meeting a secret so I didn’t tell anyone about it. The following day I called him from a phone booth and listened as he outlined the arrangement.

My agent operates an escort website that caters for wealthy foreigners and Thais, and he represents a small number of girls, all of whom he has met in person. He recruits the girls by himself. Visitors to his website contact him with their choice of escort and he then liaises with the girls in exchange for a 50% cut of their fees. If I make 5,000 baht for example, he keeps 2,500 baht for himself. I doubted that I would make much money working for him but he assured me that his customers were wealthy and would be willing to pay expensive fees. Before I hung up, he told me to send him sexy pictures of myself so that he could post them on his website. After that, all I had to do was await his call.

He advertises me as a ‘tall, slim girl with a big bosom’. With every call I receive, he tells me what fee to collect, what room number to call to and what time to be there at. Problems can sometimes arise though. Oriental Hotel, for example, doesn’t allow me in because of the way I dress. It is obvious to them what I do for a living. I dress quite provocatively by Thai standards, wearing tight-fitting tops and short, teenage-looking ruffled skirts. At other hotels, I’m asked to leave my ID card in the lobby before I go in and I get it back on my way out. The reasoning behind this is that the staff hope it will discourage me from robbing or drugging their guests. I have a fake ID card though. I use it to fool clients into believing that I was born a female because I now sell myself as a woman. Plus it’s always better to hand in a ‘Ms’ card than a ‘Mr’ card in the hotel lobby. I paid 15,000 baht for the card. A Burmese acquaintance told me he could get the fake card for me. He had obtained one himself because he needed it to apply for a go-go boy job in Soi Twilight. He showed me his card to prove how good his counterfeit was. I gave him a one-and-a-half-inch photo of myself along with the money, and he delivered the card to me the following day.

I booked my most expensive one-night stand through my online agent. The customer handed me 10,000 baht at the end of the night. My agent asked for a cut of 4,000 baht for his part in the transaction. I figured that this must have been the farang ’s first time in Thailand and that he just didn’t know any better.

The only downside of working for my agent is that I sometimes get calls at 1.00 p.m or 2.00 p.m. when I’m usually still in bed. Other times he calls me in the early hours of the morning. I’ve gone to hotels to meet customers as early as 5.00 a.m. I simply have no fixed schedule.

I’ve had customers who have refused to sleep with me when I arrive at their rooms. They claim that I look nothing like my picture. If I’m rejected, I call my agent and he will try to find me another client. My agent is certainly right about his customers being wealthy. They always stay in nice hotels, and I have never had any bad experiences from meeting customers through this channel. I don’t wait for my agent’s call every night though, I still walk the streets. The go-go bar is my last resort now. I make about 1,000 baht for a quickie and if I’m lucky I’ll have several quickies in a night.

I’ve heard stories about fully transformed ladyboys going to Singapore or Hong Kong to sell their bodies. Apparently, there are pubs and bars there that have space reserved especially for ladyboy prostitutes to solicit. There are two ways to ‘go international’. You can go there alone and walk the streets, but you risk being arrested by the police. Or you can pay a fee to an agent, called a mae-tact (mother + contact). Mae-tacts are basically ladyboys who have experience in prostitution in the respective foreign countries and can show you where to solicit undisturbed by police. Mae-tacts demand about 20,000 to 30,000 baht if you wish to work in Singapore. A fee of up to 100,000 baht is demanded if you want to work in Germany. Apparently men there like ladyboys with snakes so it’s best to have your penis intact.

Mae-tacts have contacts with the owners of many venues, such as tea houses, pubs or discotheques, which serve as pick-up points for prostitutes and punters. At these venues, prostitutes can sometimes earn commission on drinks which the clients order. For instance, for every 30 SG$ a client spends on drink for the ladyboy, they make 5 SG$. They can then either go back to their own hotel room or to the customer’s and do business there. The venues get around the law by not directly involving themselves in prostitution.

I’m not sure how long you’re allowed to stay in each country. I’ve heard that it ranges from one week to one month for Hong Kong and Singapore. Acquaintances of mine claim to be able to make up to 50,000 baht in just one week, which isn’t all that outrageous given that the fee for a quickie ranges from 3,000 to 6,000 baht depending on how good you are at negotiating. The fully transformed ladyboys can command higher fees than the partial women.

In Singapore, if you walk the streets on your own there is a good chance you will come across undercover policemen in plain clothes. If you’re arrested, you’ll be denied entry to Singapore for the rest of your life. Your head will be shaved and you’ll be flogged, before being unceremoniously deported home.

As tempting as foreign opportunities may be, I’m happy to wait for my agent’s call and concentrate on selling my body through this channel. It’s easier because you don’t have to go looking for the clients yourself. The only downside is that my schedule isn’t divided into work and rest time—they’re all the one.

When I book a sleepover with a client, I stay until noon and then return home to get some more sleep before I leave for Soi Twilight in the evening. I never know when my agent is going to call but when he does I should be ready and available otherwise I could miss out on an opportunity to make money. Sometimes my agent will call me more than once in the same day, and my only days off are on the occasions when he doesn’t call at all.

I’m constantly worrying about my appearance and I go to extreme lengths to keep my weight down. I eat one meal a day and take five hormone pills. My doctor has warned me that my bones will become weakened if I keep this up and that when I’m old I won’t be able to walk or lift heavy objects. I still feel dizzy when I wake up and have to put my fingers down my throat to make myself vomit. I feel hungry all the time but I need to maintain my petite frame if I want to get work. My one-meal-a-day policy suits my routine in a way because I usually sleep until after midday and eat in the afternoon. I then go to work and come home and repeat the routine.

Like I said, I dress quite provocatively, revealing a good amount of cleavage and thighs. I also like to wear girlie accessories and my outfit is never complete without a nice handbag. I usually have to wear a long jacket or robe over my top when I’m walking in and out of my soi because I don’t want to attract muggers or rapists.

I’m not proud to say this, but I hope to continue working in this career for as long as I can. I don’t have any back-up or long-term plans right now. I know that I won’t be able to sell myself forever and that eventually this young body of mine will weather, but I don’t have any particular skills to fall back on. I’m not good at applying make-up or doing my hair, abilities that are like second nature to a lot of kathoeys. I’m terrified of the thought of getting old and having nobody to take care of me. I guess all I can do is try to live for today. I feel as if I was destined to sell my body to strangers. I didn’t become a woman to fulfil myself emotionally. I gave up sexual pleasure and a piece of my soul to earn a living as a prostitute.

I like to think of myself as a fighter. I came to Bangkok with nothing and depended on my mother for everything during the first few years. Now I support my mother and my savings account boasts impressive figures. I have all the material possessions that I could only ever dream about in the past. I may have sacrificed a part of my happiness but I think at the end of the day that things have turned out okay. I’m more fortunate than many—I have a roof over my head and food on the table. As degrading as this line of business may seem to many, for me it’s a case of survival. I’ve seen many kathoeys in my village who don’t have many chances in life. On one visit home, I saw an elderly kathoey wearing an old, torn shirt as he cut grass in a field. This image has been imprinted on my memory ever since. Whenever I think of her it makes me feel better about my own life. At least I don’t have to worry about money and I am able to buy the things I need.

In regard to the ‘Ms’ title, I’d like a new title to go with my new identity. This has posed problems for me in the past. A client once wanted to take me on a trip abroad but my passport lists me as a ‘Mr’ and my client didn’t know I was born a male. I’m not sure if kathoeys will ever win the right to change their title because there are countless kathoeys out there who look so womanly that even Thai people can no longer tell the difference. If you are able to change the one thing that reveals your birth gender, which is the title on your ID card, then people would have no way of differentiating between natural women and surgical women. Men would probably marry ladyboys without even realising it.

I don’t like to be too serious about life. Even when I’m feeling down I try to keep on smiling. I never tell anyone about my problems because I don’t like to bore people. I don’t want to sit around grieving over my past mistakes. We Thais say that you should not kitmak (think too much) about things you can’t control. My main focus nowadays is to capitalise on this body that has cost me a fortune, so that one day I will be able to buy a nice house for myself.

Lately, I’ve been losing weight at such an alarming weight that I’m terrified I might have ‘it’. I dread the thought of going for a blood test. I always practise safe sex but who knows if I’ve slipped up once or twice. All I know for sure is that, regardless of whether I have it or not, I won’t stop working. I can’t.