Chapter 7:

Nicky; Air-hostess

It’s my family’s private joke that my mother gave birth to a boy and a girl on alternate deliveries. Before I came along, my mother had already given birth to six children—three girls and three boys—so in keeping with this delivery pattern she expected another girl during her seventh pregnancy. To their surprise, my parents got me, a boy, and they named me Chaiya. You see, I was supposed to have been born a female but fate dealt me a bad hand.

My family of nine lived on a farm in Lampang, a province in the northern region of Thailand. One of my earliest recollections is of the mixture of awe and admiration I felt at the sight of kathoeys ostentatiously prancing around the village, their bright, garish make-up attracting disapproving looks from the other villagers. As a young boy, I was mesmerised by their beauty and sophistication. A part of me wanted to join in their fun but I held myself back for fear that I would embarrass my family. Gossip brought our close-knit community together, and everyone knew everyone else’s business. The parents of kathoeys were the favoured targets of ridicule, and they would khai na (lose face) depending on their children’s behaviour. Por and mae acknowledged my effeminacy from an early age and they warned me not to behave like a kathoey. It would be many years later before I could reveal my true self.

Poverty robbed a lot of the potential joy from my childhood. Televisions, radios and motorcycles were luxuries we simply couldn’t afford, and I was always dressed in my brothers’ tattered hand-me-downs. Everyone in my family worked and contributed whatever they could to make ends meet. When I was too young to work in the fields, my duty was to cook and pack the food to take out to my parents and siblings in the rice fields where they ploughed the land under the glaring sun. As I got older and stronger I learned to carry buckets of water and chop firewood. My three brothers and I took turns herding the water buffalo. I would bring them to a field in the morning and allow them to have their fill of grass, before moving them on to a muddy marsh in the evening. When I was in a particularly good mood, and was sure nobody else was around, I liked to strike poses on the buffalo’s backs, pretending that I was a model and the buffalo and the field were the backdrop to a glamorous photo shoot. On one particular day, after the cameras had stopped rolling, I was lying on a buffalo’s back, staring up at the afternoon sky, when an aeroplane flew into my peripheral vision. Listening to the faint roar of the engine in the distance, I marvelled at how such a large, heavy machine could glide through the air. At the time, aeroplanes were mysterious machines to me. I had never seen one up close, let alone been in one, and if you’d told me that when I grew up I would become Thailand’s first male air-hostess, I would never have believed you.

I can’t speak for other ladyboys, but I definitely believe that I was a born-to-be. I don’t see how any aspect of my upbringing could have helped shape my current identity. My childhood was dominated by hard labour, and my three brothers, who sadly passed away in various accidents over the years, were very macho, with testosterone practically oozing out of their ears. Had you met me when I was young, you’d never have thought that the stout little buffalo herder in front of you harboured such a secret.

At school I never missed a chance to express myself through extracurricular activities. My favourite outfit consisted of red leather shoes, with ankle laces, and a red shirt, which I wore on special school days. But rather than compliment my outfit, my friends laughed at the sight of my bulging muscles being squeezed into such feminine, tight-fitting clothes. Strangely enough, I enjoyed playing the clown for them and I got a lot of joy out of making others laugh.

By the time I finished Prathom 6, the sixth and final year of my primary education, all my siblings had already found work in other provinces. On the one hand, I wanted to give up school to work with my aging parents in the rice fields, but on the other, I knew I could never be content with the humble life of a Thai farmer. While they provide food for the entire country, they often go hungry themselves. The work is physically demanding and the farmers have no financial stability as their productivity lies at the mercy of unpredictable weather. I already knew the effects poverty could have on your life and I vowed to break free of its clutches. Sadly, it never occurred to me that getting a good education might help me to do this. Back then, I still thought like a ban nok , which is basically a naïve country person, and I believed that a lower secondary certificate would be more than enough to get me a job.

The year I turned 15 many significant changes took place in my life. I felt more grown up and independent now that I had my ID card. During the Songkran festival, which celebrates the Thai New Year, I gathered enough courage to befriend a group of older kathoeys who were visiting from Bangkok. They were as beautiful and sophisticated as the kathoeys I had been in awe of as a young boy. I saw their stylish dresses and flawless make-up as signs of wealth. I knew that if I remained in the village I would never be able to afford such lavish clothes, and even if I was able to, I would never be able to wear them in public. The desire to openly express myself made me decide to move to Bangkok. A friend of mine had an aunt living there and we made a pact to move there together and stay with his aunt until we found jobs. Mae also gave me the address of my sister, who was living in the city, in case I should need help.

We arrived in the old Moh Chit bus terminal on an unbearably hot day. It was a different kind of heat to what I was used to in the open rice fields back home. The air in the city was oppressive and stagnant and I marvelled at how the people living there still had enough energy to move about at such a frantic pace. My friend and I could only walk for so long before having to sit on the sidewalk to gather our strength; our energy was like moisture evaporating into the humid air. We clutched at each other’s sleeves as we walked, terrified of being separated from a familiar face in this foreign city.

I quickly realised how differently things worked in Bangkok. Back home, if you were friendly with the owner of a grocery shop or a beauty salon you had a good chance of being offered a job, but in Bangkok next-door neighbours were generally strangers and it was hard to get to know people. I ended up moving into a rented room with my sister Nui in the Bang Sue area of Bangkok, and after several weeks of unemployment her boyfriend recommended me for a job in the pawnshop where he worked. I got a job carrying the heavy items people sold to the shop. After work, I usually called to Dunkin’ Donut where my sister Nui worked and we would walk home together. Unlike my other siblings, Nui refused to acknowledge my effeminacy and was very anti- kathoey . She repeatedly warned me, ‘Don’t you ever become a kathoey or else ...!’ Bearing her threat in mind, I decided that it would be easier to put on a male charade. It was an exhausting act but I knew it was the only way we could live together peacefully.

Luckily, I became friends with a group of kathoeys who hung out near the pawnshop and they became my lifeline. Every evening after work, I unwound with a much-needed session of girl talk. My new friends represented varying degrees of transformations. Some cross-dressed and wore make-up, while others dressed as men but were very flamboyant in their mannerisms. I talked about everything with them, from taking hormone pills to their nightly escapades to military camps for trysts with the soldiers. At the risk of sounding like a prude, I was just a passive listener, living vicariously through their wild tales. As much as I wanted to join in their adventures, I was terrified that my association with them would get back to my sister.

Finding that I had far too much free time on my hands, I decided to enrol in an evening programme at Samsen School. I was the youngest person in my class. The teaching methods were different to the daytime schooling I was used to. Rather than rely on the textbooks, the teachers encouraged us to hold group discussions on what we had learned and to participate in extracurricular activities. There was more of an emphasis on interaction and I found myself opening up to the other students and becoming less scared of expressing myself.

I found my classmates in the evening school less judgemental than my childhood counterparts. They were all adults and were much more tolerant of peoples’ differences. On the annual sports day, when I dressed up as a cheerleader, I looked more like a beautiful woman than the accidental clown I had resembled in the past. I stood with great poise in my see-through black chiffon dress and I wore my hair in a bob style that accentuated the carefully applied make-up on my sweet face. I received admiring glances and praise from my classmates in place of the snide comments I had been subjected to by my childhood peers. It is my belief that regardless of what you look like on the outside, it’s what’s on the inside that attracts people and ultimately wins them over.

After I completed the evening course, I managed to find employment in a travel agency. I got the job quite by accident. I was queuing at the barbers one day when the man sitting next to me struck up conversation. He introduced himself as Chatchai. When I told him that I was looking for a new job, he said that there was a vacancy in the travel agency he owned. Within a few days of this chance encounter, I had left the pawnshop and began working for him. I started out at the bottom of the workplace hierarchy, as an assistant to more experienced co-workers. Chatchai assigned me a mentor—a senior gay member of staff called Gla. Gla was an excellent guide and was great at entertaining the customers but we didn’t get along very well. He often made unkind remarks about my ability. I tried to let his comments roll off me by reminding myself that this was all part and parcel of being the newcomer. To Gla’s credit, I learned a lot from him about the importance of having a keen eye for detail when it comes to serving the public. I spent my first few days of employment in the office, after which I was sent to work on a tour bus. I was responsible for serving refreshments, checking the tourist list and basically attending to the tourists’ every need.

I soon came to regard Chatchai as my second father because he gave me so many opportunities to better my life. I even began calling him ‘Dad’. He was very friendly with all of his workers and people seemed to gravitate towards the aura of kindness that surrounded him. I had been working for him for only a few months when he asked me if I wanted to move into his family home. I was a little hesitant because I didn’t want to be in the way but the prospect of saving so much money on rent eventually became too tempting to resist. His family were a little wary of me at first but I soon proved my sincerity to them.

Several months later, Chatchai surprised me again by offering to help me further my studies. I couldn’t believe that someone who wasn’t even related to me could care so much about my future. Chatchai told me that he had been observing my work closely and that he thought I could have a very promising career in the hotel and tourism business. I felt a little guilty accepting his offer but I reasoned that I could later put my qualifications to good use in his business.

I enrolled in Chandrakasem Rajabhat University but continued working as a tour guide for Chatchai in my free time. My studies seemed to inspire Gla with more confidence in my ability and relations between us improved. During our shared shifts, he fed me stories about the various ladyboy beauty contests he had participated in. I was still dressing and behaving like a man at this point but I couldn’t hide my interest in his stories. In an unusual act of kindness, Gla convinced me to participate in a ladyboy beauty contest called Miss Le Flore, named after a gay pub by the same name on Silom Road in Bangkok. Gla said that he would take care of everything, from my hair and make-up to my costume. I didn’t need any persuading as I was delighted to have an excuse to dress up. I think the majority of kathoeys , like most women, love getting dressed up and being recognised and praised for their beauty.

Several days later, I sashayed onto the Miss Le Flore stage in a glittery silver gown. I didn’t expect to win, but I hoped that my sweet face and fair complexion would give me an edge over the competition. There are only two kinds of responses one can expect from the judges and audience at such a contest—you will either be praised for your beauty or mercilessly ridiculed for how awkward you look. At the end of the night I couldn’t believe it when I was awarded the Miss Popular Vote title. Gla handed me an envelope containing the prize money. The sum of 1,500 baht was written on the outside of the envelope but I opened it up to find only a 500-baht note inside. Gla shrugged his shoulders and patted his pocket to indicate where the rest of the money had disappeared to.

‘Did you think the wig, the costume and the make-up would be free?’ he asked.

At Rajabhat University, my circle consisted of a mixture of female and kathoey students. One day, as I was passing by a crowded classroom with some friends, a female lecturer called after us.

‘Young lady! Why aren’t you wearing your uniform?’

My friends and I all glanced at each other in confusion, wondering which one of us was the target of the professor’s comment.

‘What’s with you students these days?’ the professor continued, ‘We have a rule about uniforms so why are you cross-dressing?’

To my surprise, I realised that she was addressing me. As she spun on her heels and returned to her classroom, her students all craned their necks to catch a glimpse of me—dressed in the standard white t-shirt and black trousers of any rule-abiding male student. A chorus of laughter broke out. The professor took one final disapproving look at me.

‘You are a man?’ she asked confusedly. The professor had apparently mistaken me for a lesbian. My bob and delicate features had completely fooled her.

During my second year at university, a low-cost airline put up ads at several universities looking for temporary flight attendants. I was delighted when my application was successful as I had never been on a plane before. On my first day of work, my hands were shaking and my legs were wobbly. I took comfort in the fact that senior flight attendants would be there to help me out and supervise my work. The flights were domestic so I didn’t have to worry about any language barriers and I could choose my hours and work at my own convenience.

I was able to put the skills I learned in my steward job to good use in Chatchai’s business. We made our lunch packaging more attractive by replacing the Styrofoam boxes with clear plastic containers. We also replaced the cheap pink towel paper with neatly folded white facial paper.

I became the main tour guide in the company when Gla left for a new job. I got a lot of satisfaction out of knowing that tourists were happy with the service we provided. I spent ages researching destinations and gathering interesting stories relating to these places. But the tourists didn’t want to feel like they were on a school trip so we tried not to bombard them with too much information. I gathered funny folklore tales and sang songs for them. I also put on cabaret shows, as much for my own pleasure as for the entertainment of the customers. I chose my own songs, costumes and dance moves, and took advantage of my position of authority by dragging other members of staff out to dance with me.

Juggling my studies with my two jobs was hard work, but I felt like it was good practice at the same time. Shortly before I graduated, my friends and I applied for jobs as flight attendants with a home-grown airline. We had to send our TOEIC test scores along with our application forms. I was called for an interview before a panel of four executives from the airline. The interview was conducted in both English and Thai, and from the start I felt like the interviewers were trying to get on my nerves.

‘How tall are you?’ I was asked.

‘I’m 168 centimetres, sir.’ I replied.

‘My, you’re only a puppy!’ I was teased, ‘you sure you can even carry the passengers’ luggage?’

These patronising questions were supposed to test my ability to remain pleasant in unpleasant situations. The interviewers wanted to make sure that I would be capable of handling even the most difficult of customers. It was important that candidates were able to think on their feet and react positively to awkward passengers.

Just before the end of my interview, one of the interviewers said to me, ‘We know what kind of lifestyle you lead in your personal life but that doesn’t matter to us as long as it doesn’t affect your performance at work. However, we would like to see our flight attendants carry themselves in a dignified manner at all times. Can you be ...,’ he hesitated, ‘... more masculine?’

I blushed as red as a tomato. I had hoped they wouldn’t raise this matter. In my panic, I replied ‘ dai kha ’, instead of ‘ dai khrap ’. Both expressions mean ‘Yes sir/madam’, but the first is the feminine version and the second the masculine. In my panic, I had politely agreed with him as a woman would. I was so embarrassed that all I could do was awkwardly wai them (pay respect by joining your hands in a prayer position) goodbye before I ran for the door.

Out of 3,000 candidates, I was one of only 13 to be hired by the airline. Ten candidates were female and only three were male. In Thailand, it is automatically presumed that male flight attendants are homosexual, but there was one man in our group who was adamant that he was heterosexual. But when we were told we would have to pass a 100-metre swimming test he claimed he suffered from hydrophobia and quickly pulled out of the running. I suspected he was in denial about his sexuality. I even wondered if I had pushed him into the pool would he have screamed like a girl and come tumbling out of his closet. In the end, 12 of us were hired and we jokingly called ourselves ‘ nang sipsong ’ (meaning ‘the twelve sisters’) after a Thai fantasy tale because there were no straight men in our group.

I spent the next few years working as an air steward with this airline, as well as several others, before I began to question if I might actually prefer working full time as a tour guide. On the one hand, there was never a dull moment when travelling with a group of good-spirited tourists aboard a coach. I was my own boss and not only did I get to star in one-man cabaret shows, but every individual tour that I led felt like a performance, into which I got to inject as much of my personality as possible. The downside of the job was that crowd control used up a lot of my time and energy. On the other hand, the workload on a plane was spread out amongst several members of staff so it was lighter and better organised. Dealing with passengers was also much less problematic, as you had the back-up of other members of staff and management. The biggest drawback was that I had to suppress my true self in more ways than one: the work itself didn’t require much personality beyond polite smiles so my fun-loving nature was packed away with the rest of the cargo until we disembarked at our destination.

In retrospect, I think I preferred working as an air-steward, but the fact that I had to conduct myself as a man was the biggest disadvantage. I eventually found myself completely drained by the charade and I decided to take some time off work. I later returned to the first airline I had worked for after graduation. I had grown my hair just long enough to be able to partly cover my ears, and I was working only about a month when I first overheard passengers quietly asking one another why a female flight attendant was wearing the male uniform. It was mainly female passengers who commented on my appearance, clearly mistaking me for a tomboy flight attendant. I received numerous comments such as, ‘This airline must be very open-minded to allow you to wear the male uniform,’ and, ‘Why don’t you dress like her dear (gesturing towards a nearby air-hostess)? Look how lovely she is!’ I always blushed at such questions and offered the feeble excuse that I was waiting for my uniform to come back from the launderette.

The situation reached a crescendo when a passenger sent a letter to the executive of the airline. I was immediately summoned to his office. He told me that the airline had received both positive and negative feedback from passengers, but that the author of this particular letter was complimenting the airline on its open-mindedness. The author had added that I would look far prettier in a female uniform. The executive told me that he had discussed the matter with the board but no decision had yet been reached. Instead of rebuking me as I had expected, the executive handed me a female uniform and told me to wear it to work until the matter was resolved.

Two days after our meeting, a box containing the full air-hostess uniform and a flight schedule arrived at my house. I was so nervous on my first day as a female air-hostess that it felt like I was starting a completely new job. To make matters worse, the executive was aboard the plane to observe the reactions of the passengers and report back to the rest of the board. As it turned out, none of the passengers batted an eyelid—as far as they were concerned I was a woman.

From that day on I was granted the privilege of working as an air-hostess, and I started to make gradual changes to the rest of my life. I had always been considered a mild-mannered man so my conduct wasn’t so much a problem during my transformation from male to female. My makeover spread from my work life to my personal life. I pierced my ears and started cross-dressing in public. I threw out the male clothes in my wardrobe, and in their place I bought skirts, blouses and dresses. I put sponges under my clothes to serve as fake breasts, and I learned to taep. In time, my face and mannerisms became very womanly. But when I stood naked in front of a mirror all I could see was my penis. What exactly am I ? I wondered. This question, combined with the relationship I had begun with a Nepali man, made me eager to complete my transformation. I had met the Nepali man on a flight from Malaysia to Nepal. He was travelling with his sister and brother-in-law. I thought he was strikingly handsome. I noticed that his sister poked him and pointed at me as they boarded the aeroplane, but I didn’t read too much into this gesture.

When he was seated, I handed him an immigration form to fill in. His hands were covered in ink by the time he was finished. As I handed him a towel, he looked up at me and said, ‘My sister wants me to get to know you better.’

‘Huh, pardon me?’ I stumbled.

‘She wants you and me to be boyfriend and girlfriend.’

He caught me completely off guard. I really wanted to say yes but I was on duty and I didn’t want to behave improperly. I could get a bad name for flirting with passengers on the airline’s time. I politely declined his proposal and rushed back to my seat. I spent the rest of the flight trying to avoid walking by him.

After we landed in Nepal, he surprised me yet again by turning up at my hotel. I had no idea how he found out where the airline crew was staying. He asked me out to dinner and I gladly agreed now that I was off duty. He took me to a five-star restaurant and from the beginning he made no secret of the fact that he wanted to make me his wife. I was shocked but flattered. At that time I hadn’t had surgery on my body but he couldn’t tell that I was a kathoey. I had turned down other passengers who had fancied me in the past because I didn’t want to deceive anyone, but no one else had ever been this persistent before. And besides, I really liked this man.

I avoided physical contact with him at all costs. I didn’t want him to touch my breasts only to find sponges where soft flesh should have been. I held him at arm’s length by claiming to be a virtuous woman.

‘If you’re serious about me,’ I would tell him, ‘then I have to tell you that we can’t be intimate. My culture considers intimacy outside of wedlock a disgrace.’

‘I agree,’ he would softly croon in reply, ‘That’s alright; we can take it slow.’

I struggled with my conscience because I knew we didn’t have a future together, yet I couldn’t help but feel flattered that a man could be so insistent about taking me as his wife. Our relationship was conducted mainly over the phone because of the distance between us. In time, he proposed to me. Rather than say no outright, I delayed in giving him an answer, telling him that I was too busy with work and that we lived so far apart. He argued that he would be willing to move to Thailand once we were married. The more insistent he became, the more I pitied myself, for I was neither a man nor a woman. I began to feel guilty for having given him false hope. This sense of guilt and my own self-pity began to take its toll on me. How could I admit to him that I was a kathoey and then ask if he still wanted me to be his wife? I decided to spare myself further grief because it was only a matter of time before I would have to tell him the truth. I began to distance myself from him. I stopped calling him, hoping that he would eventually get the message.

After this relationship, I found it harder and harder to look at my naked body in the mirror. I eventually became so full of self-loathing that I felt I had no choice but to complete my transformation. I reasoned that I already thought of myself as a female and presented myself as one so it would just be a matter of getting my body in sync with my mind. I carried out extensive research on sexual reassignment surgery, particularly its side effects, and weighed up the unpleasantness of the operation against the happiness I expected from life as a woman. I had only one shot at this and I knew it would not be a good idea for me to be sitting on my wallet. I had been supporting my parents for some time now and felt that I deserved to invest some money in my own happiness. I had heard all kinds of negative stories about life after the operation: I heard of kathoeys being left mentally impaired because of the surge of hormones in their bodies, and of others who became bad tempered and emotional as can happen to some women when they’re going through the menopause. I was terrified that I wouldn’t be able to function properly after the operation.

I spoke to many well-known surgeons and they all suggested that I start taking oestrogen pills to counteract the effects of my plunging testosterone levels after the operation. Kathoeys are usually advised to take hormones for many years both before and after a sex-change operation. But I hadn’t taken any up until this point because it had seemed like a waste when I was still living as a man. Now that I was determined to undergo the operation, I started taking the tablets right away. They made me extremely dizzy and nauseous, but the worse I felt, the more I assured myself they must be working.

I made an appointment with the executive of the airline to discuss my intentions. I wanted to know how the company would feel about me having the operation and if they would let me keep my job after I became a woman. I wanted to show them that I was sincere about my decision but that I had also considered their feelings. I wasn’t sure if they would give me the go-ahead as they had already compromised by allowing me to wear the female uniform.

The executive told me that he wouldn’t be able to give me an answer until he discussed the matter with the other members of the board. I knew some of the members disapproved of me so I was expecting the worst. But in the end the board decided that so long as an employee’s decisions didn’t affect their performance in the workplace, then it wasn’t the airline’s responsibility to police their freedom. One executive even went on to say that if I felt freer in my personal life then there would be nothing holding me back from delivering my best performance at work. The board agreed to approve my decision on the condition that I obtain a letter from the Institute of Aviation Medicine confirming that my sex-change operation would not affect my performance at work.

The doctor I spoke to at the centre told me that unfortunately he couldn’t write such a letter as it was the first time in the centre’s history that a male flight attendant had sought the operation. After he had discussed the situation with high-ranking officers, he told me that they didn’t think the operation would inhibit my performance, but that they would like to use me as a case study if the airline would give their approval.

I dared not discuss my decision with my birth parents. I was afraid that they wouldn’t be able to cope with the news and, at the time, nothing short of a herd of stampeding elephants could have stopped me from going ahead with the operation. My colleagues asked in hushed voices if I would miss ‘it’. I told them that I wouldn’t because I had never really used ‘it’ very much to begin with.

I decided not to discuss the operation with my second father either. I had once casually mentioned a sex-change operation in a conversation with him just to gauge his reaction and it had been obvious that he disapproved of them. He thought I would be better off living my life as a homosexual man as I would have a better chance of having a relationship with another gay man. If I became a woman, I would only be able to go out with straight men. Chatchai didn’t think that any man in his right mind would want a relationship that wasn’t recognised by the law and could never bear children. To him, the life of a ladyboy was an unfulfilled one. I knew that had I discussed it with him seriously, I would only have upset him. His concerns made me think though. At that point, I wasn’t even hoping to find love after I became a woman. I even thought that if I didn’t have another romance until the day I died that it would still be worth it. I already had many friends and family around me, but finding a man who would accept me as a woman would have been an added bonus. I wanted to undergo the operation for my own self-esteem and happiness more than anything else.

I rang the hospital to schedule a date for the operation. The doctor happened to have a gap in his schedule on 31 December 2005, and even though I had planned on celebrating the New Year with my friends, the doctor warned me that it could be several more weeks before another vacancy might arise. I decided to go ahead with it, thinking that I could leave my former self behind me in 2005, and embrace the New Year and the new me all at once. I saw it as a good omen.

Before I could be admitted to hospital, I first had to undergo a psychological evaluation so that the doctor could make sure that I was truly prepared for the operation and it wasn’t just an impulsive decision. The evaluation was more like an interview. The doctor asked me basic questions about my daily life, job and family. If I gave answers that were considered incompatible with someone wishing to live life as a woman, then that would be the end of the process.

After I had passed the psychological test, the surgeon requested to see me in his office. He asked me to strip naked so that he could examine my body. He explained that the depth of my vaginal cavity depended on the size of my penis. To put it in layman’s terms: he would peel my ‘banana’ and use this peel to form a cavity inside my body. The longer the peel, the deeper the cavity. He would do his best to preserve nerve and muscle endings so that I wouldn’t lose sensation or control of my bladder. My urethra would also be rearranged and repositioned to imitate its positioning in the female body. My breast implants would be less complicated than the reconstruction of my genitalia. The surgeon would make a small opening in each armpit, through which a device would be inserted to make space under my chest for silicone bags. After the silicone bags had been put in place, the openings would be sewn closed.

Usually kathoeys get breast implants first, as some have second thoughts and decide to have the silicone bags removed so that they can revert back to their male form. Genital reassignment is not something that can be undone so the doctors usually prefer to wait and make sure kathoey patients are really sure of themselves. The surgeon who handled my case was taken aback when I told him that I wanted breast implants and genital reassignment all in the one operation. He was concerned that my body might suffer a major loss of blood and go into shock. He tried to talk me out of such a risky operation but I insisted on going ahead with it.

On 29 December, I told Chatchai that I had to take a foreign flight, but instead, I made my way to the hospital. I was told not to eat anything for 24 hours before my operation as the remains of food in my stomach could move up and block my trachea during the surgery. I could die before ever becoming a woman. The other concern was that my excretory system might start working during my operation and I could wet myself and risk inflammation.

On 31 December, I was wheeled into the operating theatre. I could see a collection of stainless steel knives and other devices laid out on a nearby table. Doctors and nurses flocked around me, with only the sliver of flesh around their eyes exposed. The doctor told me to lie on my side and pull my knees up to my chest so that morphine could be injected into my spine. A nurse felt along the base of my spine, and upon finding the spot she was looking for, she jabbed me with a big needle. A sharp pain seared through me but within a few minutes I could no longer feel my legs.

I grabbed the nurse by the hand and pleaded with her, ‘Nurse, tell the doctor to make me beautiful. I’m worried that I won’t come out looking as beautiful as I want to.’

She smiled reassuringly and promised me they would do their best. The doctor overheard my plea and laughed softly. He then told the nurse to fasten my hands and legs with rubber belts to prevent any body spasms during the operation. I was injected with a sedative and within seconds I was unconscious.

The operation lasted 11 hours, and when I finally awoke it was 8.00 p.m. on 1 January 2006. I had a burning pain in my chest and it felt like something heavy was pressing down on me. I felt no pain below my waist—I couldn’t even feel my legs—probably because the morphine was still in my system. I looked down and saw a tube connecting my new opening to a bag of urine. My breasts were tightly wrapped with elastic surgical tape. If I moved at all, a sharp pain jolted through my body that was so intense I was convinced I would pass out.

I was allowed to rest for 24 hours after the operation. The following day a different doctor and two nurses came to my room to read my stats to me. The doctor introduced himself and told me that he was going to massage my breasts. One of the nurses unwrapped the surgical tape while the other nurse took notes on her clipboard. I had a dull throbbing in my chest but I wasn’t prepared for the level of pain I was about to experience. The doctor put on his gloves and pushed my breasts together, massaging them in a circular motion with his fingers and palms, like a baker kneading dough. All of a sudden, a terrible pain exploded in my chest. I screamed aloud and begged the doctor to stop. I burst into tears as the nurses grabbed my shoulders and held me still. I had never experienced pain like this before. I could feel the silicone bags rubbing against the raw, unhealed skin inside my chest. The doctor explained that I would have to massage my breasts every day and put up with the pain, otherwise a web would form inside my breasts and they would become hardened. My implants were rough-skin silicone so the pain was extremely severe, but the doctor insisted that this type of bag would look and feel the most natural. He massaged my breasts so roughly that I worried the bags would burst but I was assured that they were very durable.

Later on that day, a nurse called to my room carrying a curved tray, a pair of tongs and some pieces of cloth. She told me she was going to unwrap the tape covering my bottom so that she could clean my new opening. She lifted up the blanket and I spread my legs wide. I was in too much pain to be embarrassed. Using the tongs, the nurse slowly retrieved a long piece of cloth that the doctor had stuffed into my new cavity for the absorption of blood and other discharges. I could feel the cloth scratching at the open wounds on my insides. The nurse flushed out the cavity with cleaning fluid. Shortly after, a doctor arrived in the room, carrying silicone dilators in three different sizes. I was shown how to insert them into my new opening to prevent the flesh from healing over. Starting with the smallest dilator, he pushed it in as deep as he could and left it there for three hours. Later, the medium and large dilators were inserted for three hours each. The doctor told me that I would have to do this every day for the next year.

While I was in hospital, my second father dropped by my office on his way to catch a flight to Hat Yai. My friend, not knowing that I hadn’t confided in him about my surgery, told him that I was in hospital recovering from a sex-change operation. Apparently, he almost collapsed on the spot. When he called me in the hospital, the first thing he said to me was, ‘I know’. I instantly burst into tears. All I could do was apologise profusely. Chatchai told me that all the apologies in the world wouldn’t change anything so to just forget about it. He asked me how I was feeling and didn’t scold me at all. When he got back from Hat Yai, he came to visit me. I started crying as soon as I saw him, my pent-up guilt at having betrayed his trust bubbling to the surface. He kept repeating that it was okay and that he wasn’t angry at me. For the rest of my hospital stay, Chatchai visited me everyday. He took the early shift and my gay friend, Mark, took the late shift.

While I was still in hospital, I got an unexpected phone call from the Nepali man.

‘Why haven’t you called me?’ he demanded, sounding quite upset.

‘I’ve been unwell,’ I told him, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. ‘I’ve been staying at the hospital all this time.’

‘What did you have?’ he asked.

‘I had my appendix removed.’

‘But you haven’t called me for months.’

I was such a terrible liar. I realised that all this time he had still been clinging onto the hope that I would one day be his wife. He really thought we could go the distance together. My guilt ballooned into the size of a mountain and I decided that I had to bite the bullet and put him out of his misery. I told him that I had been seeing someone else. His voice cracked and he sounded like he was about to cry. I felt terrible when I realised how hurt he was.

A few days later, I was sitting up in bed talking to Mark, with the large dilator inside me, when I suddenly felt something wet underneath my behind. I thought I must have lost control of my bladder and wet myself so I reached for a roll of paper towels on the nightstand.

As I lifted the blanket I almost fainted at the sight of the blood-soaked cushions. Mark ran out of the room to fetch a nurse for me. When the nurse arrived, she was worried about the amount of blood I had lost so she phoned the doctor. Apparently, the flow of blood had been so strong that it had pushed the dilator out of my body. The doctor instructed the nurse to re-insert the dilator to prevent further blood loss. I was beginning to feel dizzy as the nurse tentatively picked up the blood-covered dilator and pushed it back in. But the strong current of blood immediately ejected it again. The nurse pushed it in a second time only for it to come out again. On the third attempt she told me to use my hand to hold it in place. I began drifting in and out of consciousness from the loss of blood. I pressed my legs tightly together to keep the dilator in place. My blood pressure was dangerously low and I was convinced I was going to die.

I was eventually wheeled into the operating room for emergency surgery. Apparently, a section of my insides hadn’t completely healed yet and the dilator had damaged it. The surgery was minor. The doctor repaired the damaged flesh and inserted a small bundle of cloth surgical tape to absorb any fluids.

Two days after the surgery, the doctor asked me to try urinating by myself to see if I could control my bladder. But I was more interested in getting a look at my new body than finding out whether or not my bladder still worked. The reflection that greeted me was so breathtakingly beautiful that I wondered if it was really mine. My face was worn from fatigue and my hair was in disarray, but from the neck down I saw a gloriously curvaceous female body. This is the real me. This is how I’m supposed to look , I thought.

Before I was released from the hospital, the doctor warned me that I would have to continue using the dilators every day to keep the cavity open, but after the nightmarish episode when I had lost all that blood, I was terrified of pushing the dilators in too deep. Two weeks later, the cavity began to close, and before long I couldn’t push the dilators into my surgical vagina at all.

I rang my doctor and he scheduled an operation for me at three that afternoon. He promised it wouldn’t take long. I was anaesthetised but this time they didn’t inject morphine into my spine. When I regained consciousness, I was in excruciating pain. I was told to keep the large dilator inserted until noon the following day. The doctor even tried to make light of the situation by telling me that I should insert the large dilator frequently and as deeply as possible in case I might bag myself a black boyfriend in the future.

After this I had twice-monthly appointments with the doctor so that he could check on my ‘wound’. During one of these appointments, I was lying on the bed, waiting for him to make sure that the wound hadn’t become solid, when a group of young doctors and nurses filed into the room. They formed a circle around me as I lay confused on the bed. The doctor proudly announced to his captive audience, ‘Look everyone. This is what we call a beautiful wound.’ He launched into a matter-of-fact explanation of the operation and its aftermath as he prodded and moved parts of my new vagina. I didn’t know if I should be proud to be the owner of a beautiful ‘wound’ that the doctor wanted to show off to his colleagues or if I should be burying my face in the pillow from embarrassment.

When my body had healed, my desire to partake in beauty pageants was reignited. Only this time I would be fulfilling my dream of competing as a fully transformed female. I saw it as a rite of passage in my new body. I decided to approach my boss about participating in the Miss Tiffany Universe 2006 pageant in Pattaya. The Tiffany pageant is considered a prestigious competition as it’s the ladyboy equivalent of Miss Thailand Universe. Had the airline disapproved, I wouldn’t have entered the competition. But to my surprise, not only did they approve but they also offered to sponsor me.

A Thai newspaper covered the contest and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that they had listed me as one of the most promising contestants. From then on, I became known in the media as ‘Nicky’, Thailand’s first male airhostess. I didn’t win any awards in the pageant but I wasn’t disappointed as I was up against many beautiful contestants. What surprised me was the amount of attention I received from TV programmes, many of whom wanted to feature me on their shows. My life story and the open-mindedness of my airline became the talk of the town. Thanks to the Miss Tiffany pageant I became a minor celebrity and the kindness and empathy I received from the public was the greatest crown I could ever have asked for.

With all the media exposure I was getting, I knew it was only a matter of time before my birth family found out about my sex-change operation. When I first started cross-dressing I still returned to Lampang for regular visits, but I only ever stayed for two days and I always made sure I didn’t show my face in the neighbourhood so as not to embarrass my family. I wanted to be the one to break the news to my parents so I decided to call them. As soon as I uttered the words ‘sexual reassignment surgery’ there was silence on the other end of the phone. I began to plead with them.

‘So far I’ve been a good son to you, haven’t I? I’ve never disappointed you. Now I want to do something to make myself happy. And that is to live as a woman. I hope you understand.’

It was extremely difficult for me to say that. They had warned me against being a kathoey in the past and I was worried that they still considered it a shameful existence. To my surprise, they didn’t get angry. My parents told me that villagers had been asking around if anyone knew of this ladyboy called Nicky who claimed to come from our village. They didn’t recognise their own neighbour Chaiya. A well-known gay activist, Natee Teerarojjana, also phoned to thank me for shedding a positive light on the transgender community through my story. He complimented my airline on its open-mindedness. I considered his call a great honour.

Today I am part of a campaign fighting for the ‘Ms’ title for the second kind of women who have completed their physical transformation. Gay men, lesbians and transgender people in Thailand attend our meetings and we discuss our various problems and try to work together towards a solution. It would be nice if I could one day use ‘Ms’ as my title, but to be honest I won’t be too upset if this never happens. We put so much effort into the campaign and have occasional bursts of media exposure, only to fade away into the background again without ever making any real progress. To be honest, right now I’m tired of fighting what feels like a losing battle. I’m not an idealist and I have so many other things in my life demanding my attention. I don’t feel like I’m able to commit to the cause but I don’t want my comrades-in-arms to give up the fight either because I know this change would bring so much joy to the sao praphet song (third gender) in Thailand. I would be honoured if they still want me to use my celebrity status to help raise awareness for this campaign but it is not my current priority.

Being called ‘Mr’ does hinder me in a lot of ways. I have applied for air-hostess jobs with many international airlines, and although I usually get down to the final round alongside a handful of other candidates, when the employer goes over my application more carefully and sees that I am a ladyboy I am always disqualified. It doesn’t matter that I have all the qualifications they are looking for, the fact that my title is ‘Mr’ is enough to disqualify me. I just want to be treated fairly. But no matter how many times I am rejected I refuse to give up because I know I deserve a better life.

I worry that the ‘Mr’ in my title might generate legal problems for me in the future, most notably by affecting my plans to adopt a child. A lot of my friends are having babies lately and when I hold them or play with them my own maternal instinct is awoken. I’d love to have a baby boy, whereas my current boyfriend is eager to have a girl. I have started looking into the matter but right now my main concern is making enough money to be able to offer my child the best home possible. Coming from a poor background myself, I don’t want poverty to rob my own children of the joys in life. I also want to make sure that my current relationship is going to be long term. I don’t want to adopt a child, only to break up with my boyfriend a few years later and put the child through all that trauma. I’m confident that I could raise a child by myself but I think two parents can potentially offer a better upbringing.

I first met my present boyfriend when we were both living in the same condominium. I was walking past his room one day and happened to glance in through the window at the exact same time as he was looking out. Our eyes met and we laughed at the awkward coincidence. We gradually became friends, and it wasn’t long before romance blossomed. At first I didn’t tell him that I’d been born a man. I had made several appearances on TV before we met but luckily for me he didn’t watch very much TV so he didn’t recognise me. I’m Ant to him and Nicky to the rest of Thailand. He didn’t question my birth gender and I didn’t see any reason to tell him. Don’t ask, don’t tell was my policy. When we decided to move in together I put away any evidence that might betray my real gender: a published book I wrote about my life, recordings of TV programmes I had appeared in, magazines that featured my story. As my feelings for him grew stronger I became extra dedicated to protecting my secret, and I started avoiding further media appearances. Even if I could have sheathed my boyfriend in a media-proof bubble I couldn’t do the same to his friends and family. Several of them recognised me from TV and exposed me to my boyfriend but he laughed at their claims, insisting that I was just a look-alike.

I came up with clever ways of backing up the deceit. I left copies of my fake female ID card lying around the house so that he would come across them by chance. My most elaborate plot saw me faking menstruation through the use of ‘bloodied’ used sanitary pads. I dropped Utaitip (a red herbal mix used to flavour drinks) onto a pad so that it would look like menstrual blood. Then I wrapped the pad in a piece of newspaper and carelessly rolled it into a ball, leaving just enough of it exposed so that it would be obvious what lay inside. I left it next to the toilet. Later, when my boyfriend went into the bathroom, I knocked on the door and began to apologise profusely for forgetting to throw away the used pad. I made a joke out of how unladylike and careless I was. I knew that, like most men, the allusion to menstruation alone would be enough to leave a lasting impression on him. I also kept track of my supposed menstrual cycle and dutifully abstained from sex for one week every month.

However, there is no such thing as a secret in this world and eventually the truth always manages to claw its way out into the open. I phoned my boyfriend one day and asked if he would mind cleaning up our bedroom. While doing this, he came across a brown envelope that contained pictures of me when I was still a man, along with other documents that betrayed my true gender. He told me afterwards that he went weak at the knees when he found these documents, and he began to sweat profusely. He didn’t want to believe that I was a ladyboy. He put the envelope back where he had found it and disappeared for the next two days.

When he had calmed down he came home and we talked things over. He coldly informed me that he doesn’t like ‘trees from the same forest’ (a euphemism for ‘I’m not a homosexual’). He wasn’t affectionate towards me like he normally was. He just stared at me detachedly like we were strangers. I couldn’t understand how he could think that loving me made him gay. I didn’t have a penis anymore and hadn’t had one since long before we met. I told him that I felt guilty and had never intended to hurt him but that I didn’t feel like I had lied about my gender; as far as I was concerned I was now 100% female. I was still the same person he had fallen in love with. I asked him to touch me and when he rested his hands on the same soft, shapely flesh that he knew so well, all his old feelings came flooding back. He sat still for a while, struggling with his conscience, before he finally whispered in my ear, ‘It doesn’t matter now. I’m already in love with you.’ Today, he is more affectionate towards me than ever before and I’m really glad that we’re back together.

The only real difficulty we now face is that some of his friends and family don’t know about my true identity, and he insists that he doesn’t want them to ever find out. His parents are very fond of me and often ask when we plan to marry and how many grandchildren I expect to give them. I feel so flattered by their expectations that I hate the thought of dashing their hopes.

I honestly don’t know what the future holds for me but I’m an eternally optimistic person. There have been no shortage of miracles in my life so far and I have no reason not to believe that an abundance of them still await me. It’s all about taking a leap of faith—it may be scary at the time, but change can be exciting, and for me, the scariest thing of all is standing still.