Lady Boys, Tom Boys, Rent Boys
Male and Female Homosexualities in Contemporary Thailand
Edited by Peter A. Jackson, Canberra Gerard Sullivan
1999, Harrington Park Press - 237 Pages
About The Book:
Lady Boys, Tom Boys, Rent Boys: Male and Female
Homosexualities in Contemporary Thailand offers methods that will
help social workers, researchers, and students create HIV/AIDS
intervention services for gay men, lesbians, and transgender individuals
in or from Thailand. Many of these methods can also be used by
practitioners or HIV/AIDS educators in North America and developing
countries to address issues of culturally diverse clientele. In
response to Western and Thai sexuality studies that fail to accurately
represent the diverse sexualities of Thailand, this book discusses
and describes certain factors that need to be taken into consideration
when developing intervention programs. Demonstrating how cultural
and social factors influence services, Lady Boys, Tom Boys, Rent
Boys will help you provide clients with effective and relevant
services.
Drawing attention to Eurocentric ideology that may
hinder cross-cultural collaboration for Thai-Western service provisions,
this book offers you information that will help you understand
how cultural, political, and economic systems shape sexuality
and gender roles in Thai society. Lady Boys, Tom Boys, Rent Boys
provides you with the necessary knowledge for providing successful
services, including:
- how Thai sexualities are identified by examining the meaning
of terms such as ?toms? (masculine Thai lesbians),
?dee? (feminine-identified women who have relations
with other women), ?kathoey? (males that dress like
women and wear make-up), or ?lady boys? (transsexual
or transvestite males)
- how Thai society actually defines ?having sex?
and recognizing the differences from Western connotations of
sex to effectively teach individuals about the risk of HIV/AIDS
- ways Western views of confidentiality and privacy differ
from Thai views in order to understand why individuals hesitate
to get tested for or seek counselling about HIV/AIDS
- the relationship between occupation and sexual identity
in movies and magazines that reveal how sexuality is characterized
in Thailand
- the unique social identity of ?toms? and how
Thai society labels what is masculine and feminine
- reasons for hiding sexual identity, such as rejection,
fear of stereotypes, and having a relationship that is viewed
by society as wrong and meaningless
- protecting commercial sex workers (CSW) from infection
by developing culturally appropriate interventions
One of the only books to address HIV/AIDS issues of gay
and transgender individuals in Thailand, Lady Boys, Tom Boys,
Rent Boys will help you increase awareness about HIV/AIDS and
create successful intervention programs for clients.
Reviews:
?This book is about a way of life, culture,
and society far away. It is also AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR OUR
COUNTRY as we continue to be the melting pot we have always been.?
- Resources Hotline
?AN ENGAGING BOOK. . . . Will be of interest to HIV/AIDS
prevention workers, scholars of Thailand and Southeast Asia, and
students of human gender and sexuality.? - Journal of
Asian Studies
?Brings to life the issues and problems of interpreting
sexual and gender identities in contemporary Thailand. . . . Provides
challenges to the applicability of models derived from Western
gay, lesbian, and queer theories. . . . An important corrective
to the many misapprehensions that have arisen, both within and
outside Thailand, about non-normative sexual behaviors.?
- Nerida M. Cook, PhD, Lecturer in Sociology, Department of
Sociology and Social Work, University of Tasmania, Australia
?Demonstrates how negative stereotypes have pervaded the
dominant scholarship on sexual minorities in Thailand and caused
barriers to needed health education, counseling, and health services.
. . . This book illustrates how the cultural notions of family
and community may be positive resources in providing effective
services.? - Eldon L. Wegner, PhD, Professor of Sociology,
University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu
Contents:
- Foreword
- A Panoply of Roles: Sexual and Gender Diversity in Contemporary
Thailand
- Same-Sex Sexual Experience in Thailand
- HIV/AIDS Projects with and for Gay Men in Northern Thailand
- Increasingly Gay Self-Representations of Male-Male Sexual
Experiences in Thailand
- Masculinity and Tom (ital) Identity in Thailand
- Transformations of Transgender: The Case of the Thai Kathoey
(ital)
- Rehearsing Gender and Sexuality in Modern Thailand: Masculinity
and Male-Male Sex Behaviors
- The Friends Thou Hast: Support Systems for Male Commercial
Sex Workers in Pattaya, Thailand
- Between Money, Morality and Masculinity: The Dynamics of
Bar-Based Male Sex Work in Chiang Mai
- About the Contributors
- Index
- Reference Notes Included
About the Editors
Peter A. Jackson, PhD Research Fellow in Thai History,
Division of Pacific and Asian Studies, Research School of Pacific
and Asian Studies, Australian National University, Canberra Gerard
Sullivan, PhD Senior Lecturer, School of Behavioural and Community
Health, University of Sydney, Australia
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