AP - Thursday, June 21
BANGKOK, Thailand - For teen boys who prefer to dress as girls
at one rural high school in Thailand, taking a bathroom break no
longer means choosing between "male" and "female" restrooms.
There's now a "transvestite toilet."
The Kampang School in northeastern Thailand conducted a survey
last term that showed more than 200 of the school's 2,600 students
considered themselves transgender, said school director Sitisak
Sumontha.
So, when classes resumed in May, the school unveiled a unisex
restroom designated by a human figure split in half _ part man in
blue and part woman in red. Below it are the words "Transvestite
Toilet."
Three transgender students praised the new restroom as they
plucked their eyebrows and applied face powder in front of the
mirror outside the stalls.
"I'm so happy about this," Vichai Sangsakul, a teenager with a
pixie hairdo pulled back with a pink barrette, told Thailand's PBS
news channel on Tuesday. "It looks bad going to female restrooms.
What would other people think?"
Most rural Thais are conservative in many ways, but the
trailblazing toilet initiative at the school in northeastern
Sisaket province reflects another aspect of Thai society: its
tolerance of the country's very visible transgender community. The
term describes a wide range of identities including cross-dressers,
transvestites, transsexuals and those born with the physical
characteristics of both sexes.
"These students want to be able to go to the restroom in peace
without fear of being watched, laughed at or groped," said school
director Sitisak Sumontha.
He said the concept reflected a growing need at Thai schools and
universities.
Kampang is not Thailand's first educational institution to set
up unisex washrooms, though Sitisak said he believed it was a first
for a secondary school. A 1,500-student technical college in the
northern province of Chiang Mai set up a "Pink Lotus Bathroom" for
its 15 transvestite students in 2003.
Deputy Education Minister Boonlue Prasertsopar recently said the
ministry plans to count the number of transgender university
students.
He said he was not promoting transgender interests, "but if
there are a lot of them in a university and it's a problem, we may
have to consider building toilets and dormitories for them."
Transgenders are regularly seen on TV soap operas and throughout
Bangkok, working at department store cosmetics counters, popular
restaurants, in office jobs and in the capital's red-light
districts. Thailand also has transgender beauty pageants.