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The Secret Life of Transgender Women “Ladyboys” in Thailand’s Muslim Majority South
PATTANI – Whenever Ardulmalik Maskul returns from Bangkok to her hometown in Pattani province in southern Thailand, she undergoes a transformation. She removes her make-up, changes into trousers and begins to mind her manners. Mostly, though, she doesn’t leave the house.
Asan Sohoh engages in similar sartorial subterfuge on her return visits to Pattani. “I don’t want to embarrass my parents,” she says.
Maskul and Sohoh are practising Muslims and they’re also transgender women. “It’s very difficult to be like us,” Maskul says in English. “In Pattani it’s a big bad thing to be transgender.”
In Buddhist Thailand male-to-female transsexuals, known locally as katoeys or ladyboys, are free to live like women. “They’re widely accepted,” says Pornchai Sereemongkonpol, the author of Ladyboys: The Secret World of Thailand’s Third Gender. “They may face some disadvantages, but no one harasses them.”
That’s not so in Pattani, one of Thailand’s three southernmost Muslim-majority provinces, bordering Malaysia, where more restrictive social mores prevail.
A separatist insurgency has claimed thousands of lives in the region since 2001. Islamic militants have subjected local Buddhist civilians, government officials, policemen and suspected Muslim collaborators to a stream of bombings, drive-by shootings and beheadings.
“In Pattani I can’t dress like this,” says Maskul, gesturing at her tightfitting navy-blue dress with a plunging neckline and a hemline that sits well above the knees. She’s in a Bangkok shopping centre and no one pays her any attention. “If I did this at home, people would shout insults at me. They might attack me.”
Maskul, 35, who works as an import-export officer at a Bangkok-based company, is bubbly and sassy with a penchant for playful banter. “Even when I’m dressed in unisex style, many people in Pattani look me over from head to toe, toe to head,” she quips with a laugh. “I like to be the centre of attention, but not in that way.”
Her gender identity has been no laughing matter for her family, which claims partial descent from Pattani’s erstwhile sultans and counts imams among its members. When Maskul was in her teens, one of her uncles, taking her feminine ways to be wilful deviance, tried slapping them out of her. “Even as a child I felt like a girl in a boy’s body,” Maskul recalls. “I liked playing with girls, not boys.”
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Her father, a policeman, didn’t like that one bit. He was a stickler for rules, and social and religious codes. “My family is quite strict and conservative,” Maskul says. “They always knew what I am. Just look at my mannerisms,” she adds with another chuckle. “But I know they can never really accept me.”
Sohoh, who is 26, hasn’t had it any easier. “My parents are devout and they forbade me from acting like a girl,” she recalls. So she led a double life: she put on make-up in secret but attended the mosque in boy’s clothing. “Instead of trying to change my parents, I tried to conform and act how they wanted me to act.” Outwardly as a male, that is.
A few years ago she moved to Bangkok to study at a university where she could finally let her hair down – literally. By now her parents have come to terms with her gender identity. Yet no such acquiescence is forthcoming from the rest of her family. “I have 11 uncles and aunts. They’ve all disowned me,” Sohoh says. “They mock me and deride me, but I can live with that,” she adds. “But I don’t like it that they tell my parents not to have anything to do with me.”
Demure and statuesque, with delicate features and a well-mannered poise just short of hauteur, Sohoh works in the entertainment business, like many other transwomen in Thailand. Last year she was crowned Miss Mimosa Queen at a high-profile beauty pageant for transwomen in the seaside town of Pattaya.
On a recent afternoon Sohoh strikes an eye-catching figure in a stylish white dress, turning heads on the streets of Bangkok. Her destinations included a mosque, where she went for Ramadan – after changing in a public restroom into a more low-key get-up out of religious considerations: a frilly burgundy blouse and matching trousers.
No one shouted insults at her. Instead, she was treated as a celebrity of sorts. Several locals came to take selfies with her in the warren of narrow streets that forms a small Muslim enclave opposite a Buddhist monastery. Only a couple of bearded men eyed the transwoman with a hint of disapproval, but they didn’t say anything.
“We don’t have a problem with transgender people in our community,” insists Woranuch Chalaganadacha, 57, a housewife dressed in a black abaya (a robe-like garb with a headscarf). “I have katoeys in my family. We Muslims are all brothers and sisters.”
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Such a live-and-let-live attitude is common among Muslims in cosmopolitan Bangkok, but less so in the southern provinces. “We could never do this back home,” Maskul says, referring to her visits to a mosque dressed as a woman.
“It’s hard for us to be practising Muslims in a conservative society. Islamic society is divided strictly into men and women in public,” she adds. “I don’t know where I should be during prayers. Should I join the women or the men? So I don’t go. I stay at home.”
Islam has had mixed views of transsexuals during its history. The fortunes of transgender women, called mukhannathun (“effeminate ones”) in Arabic have waxed and waned over the centuries, often depending on whether they were seen as gay (homosexuality is a sin in Islam) or as members of a nebulous third gender who were assumed to have been born that way.
In many traditional Muslim societies today, transwomen tend to conceal their gender identities for fear of being harassed, or worse. Earlier this year in Aceh, a religiously conservative province in Indonesia, a dozen transwomen were rounded up by police who set out to “re-educate” them. They were taken to a local mosque where they were subjected to religious sermons and publicly humiliated by having their dresses stripped and their hair cut.
“If I’d been born in Malaysia or Indonesia, I’d have more problems,” Sohoh says.
In Thailand, about a quarter of a million men may be transgender in a country of 69 million, according to some estimates. In freewheeling touristy areas, “ladyboys” are particularly visible. In the three Muslim-majority southern provinces, however, they’re nowhere to be seen.
But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. One of the brothers of Maskul’s father is himself transgender. Uncle Jiseng has never married but he’s never come out publicly as a transwoman, either.
“He dresses like a man, but he loves pretty things like doing flower arrangements. In his heart he’s a woman like me,” Maskul notes, showing off pictures of a discernibly effete man on her mobile phone.
“My mother is more open-minded and often scolds my father: ‘Why can’t you accept your son? Your own brother is a tootsie!’” she says, and her cackling chuckle erupts again.
Maskul and Sohoh remain torn between their gender identity and their faith.
“If I were to die, I may not receive a Muslim burial,” Sohoh says. She prays daily, attends the mosque during Muslim holidays and doesn’t eat pork or drink alcohol. “There’s one thing I can’t do for my faith – change the way I am,” she says. “Only Allah knows my heart. Only he can judge me.”
Neither she nor Maskul would undergo sex reassignment surgery, although the practice is popular among transwomen in Thailand. In Islam, sex-change operations are generally seen as haram (forbidden).
“I don’t want to become a woman 100 per cent,” Maskul says. “When I grow old, I want to go on haj to Saudi Arabia,” she adds, referring to the pilgrimage to Mecca that is mandatory for Muslim men.
“We know it’s a sin in Islam to be like us. So before we die we’ll need to return to the way we were born,” she says. “I was born a Muslim and I’ll die a Muslim. But I didn’t choose to be this way and I’m still considered a sinner,” she adds. “I can’t just grow a moustache and work out to have more muscles like a man. That’s not me.”
The two Muslim transwomen wish their relatives would realise that, too. “Some of my cousins are louts and drug users. Yet my family thinks that’s still better than being transgender,” Sohoh laments. “We don’t hurt or bother anyone. We just want to be ourselves.”
By Tibor Krausz
South China Morning Post
A recent report indicates that since Trudeau’s announcement of his gun buyback program four years ago, almost none of the banned firearms have been surrendered.
The federal government plans to purchase 2,063 firearm models from retailers following the enactment of Bill C-21, which amends various Acts and introduces certain consequential changes related to firearms. It was granted royal assent on December 15 of last year.
This ban immediately criminalized the actions of federally-licensed firearms owners regarding the purchase, sale, transportation, importation, exportation, or use of hundreds of thousands of rifles and shotguns that were previously legal.
The gun ban focused on what it termed ‘assault-style weapons,’ which are, in reality, traditional semi-automatic rifles and shotguns that have enjoyed popularity among hunters and sport shooters for over a century.
In May 2020, the federal government enacted an Order-in-Council that prohibited 1,500 types of “assault-style” firearms and outlined specific components of the newly banned firearms. Property owners must adhere to the law by October 2023.
Trudeau’s Buyback Hasn’t Happened
“In the announcement regarding the ban, the prime minister stated that the government would seize the prohibited firearms, assuring that their lawful owners would be ‘grandfathered’ or compensated fairly.” “That hasn’t happened,” criminologist Gary Mauser told Rebel News.
Mauser projected expenses ranging from $2.6 billion to $6.7 billion. The figure reflects the compensation costs amounting to $756 million, as outlined by the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO).
“The projected expenses for gathering the illegal firearms are estimated to range from $1.6 billion to $7 billion.” “This range estimate increases to between $2.647 billion and $7 billion when compensation costs to owners are factored in,” Mauser stated.
Figures requested by Conservative MP Shannon Stubbs concerning firearms prohibited due to the May 1, 2020 Order In Council reveal that $72 million has been allocated to the firearm “buyback” program, yet not a single firearm has been confiscated to date.
In a recent revelation, Public Safety Canada disclosed that the federal government allocated a staggering $41,094,556, as prompted by an order paper question from Conservative Senator Don Plett last September, yet yielded no tangible outcomes.
An internal memo from late 2019 revealed that the Liberals projected their politically motivated harassment would incur a cost of $1.8 billion.
Enforcement efforts Questioned
By December 2023, estimates from TheGunBlog.ca indicate that the Liberals and RCMP had incurred or were responsible for approximately $30 million in personnel expenses related to the enforcement efforts. The union representing the police service previously stated that the effort to confiscate firearms is a “misdirected effort” aimed at ensuring public safety.
“This action diverts crucial personnel, resources, and funding from tackling the more pressing and escalating issue of criminal use of illegal firearms,” stated the National Police Federation (NPF).
The Canadian Sporting Arms & Ammunition Association (CSAAA), representing firearms retailers, has stated it will have “zero involvement” in the confiscation of these firearms. Even Canada Post held back from providing assistance due to safety concerns.
The consultant previously assessed that retailers are sitting on almost $1 billion worth of inventory that cannot be sold or returned to suppliers because of the Order-In-Council.
“Despite the ongoing confusion surrounding the ban, after four years, we ought to be able to address one crucial question.” Has the prohibition enhanced safety for Canadians? Mauser asks.
Illegally Obtained Firearms are the Problem
Statistics Canada reports a 10% increase in firearm-related violent crime between 2020 and 2022, rising from 12,614 incidents to 13,937 incidents. In that timeframe, the incidence of firearm-related violent crime increased from 33.7 incidents per 100,000 population in 2021 to 36.7 incidents the subsequent year.
“This marks the highest rate documented since the collection of comparable data began in 2009,” the criminologist explains.
Supplementary DataData indicates that firearm homicides have risen since 2020. “The issue lies not with lawfully-held firearms,” Mauser stated.
Firearms that have been banned under the Order-in-Council continue to be securely stored in the safes of their lawful owners. The individuals underwent a thorough vetting process by the RCMP and are subject to nightly monitoring to ensure there are no infractions that could pose a risk to public safety.
“The firearms involved in homicides were seldom legally owned weapons wielded by their rightful owners,” Mauser continues. The number of offenses linked to organized crime has surged from 4,810 in 2016 to a staggering 13,056 in 2020.
“If those in power … aim to diminish crime and enhance public safety, they ought to implement strategies that effectively focus on offenders and utilize our limited tax resources judiciously to reach these objectives,” he stated.
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Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.
According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.
Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding
Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.
The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.
Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.
Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.
To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.
Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.
On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.
In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.
Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.
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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding
On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.
TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.
When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.
And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.
Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.
A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.
Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.
But today, it feels more like reality.
Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.
SOURCE | CNN
(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.
The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.
Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.
This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.
In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.
The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.
This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.
The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.
In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.
According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.
Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.
The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.
Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.
For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.
Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.
As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.
As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.
The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.
SOURCE: AP
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