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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
News
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue
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.
Pixa Bay
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
News
The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.
(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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Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli, To repay $6.4 Million
Washington — The Supreme Court rejected Martin Shkreli’s appeal on Monday, after he was branded “Pharma Bro” for raising the price of a lifesaving prescription.
Martin appealed a decision to repay $64.6 million in profits he and his former company earned after monopolizing the pharmaceutical market and dramatically raising its price. His lawyers claimed the money went to his company rather than him personally.
The justices did not explain their reasoning, as is customary, and there were no notable dissents.
Prosecutors, conversely, claimed that the firm had promised to pay $40 million in a settlement and that because Martin orchestrated the plan, he should be held accountable for returning profits.
Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli
Martin was also forced to forfeit the Wu-Tang Clan’s unreleased album “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” which has been dubbed the world’s rarest musical album. The multiplatinum hip-hop group auctioned off a single copy of the record in 2015, stipulating that it not be used commercially.
Shkreli was convicted of lying to investors and defrauding them of millions of dollars in two unsuccessful hedge funds he managed. Shkreli was the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals (later Vyera), which hiked the price of Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 per pill after acquiring exclusive rights to the decades-old medicine in 2015. It cures a rare parasite condition that affects pregnant women, cancer patients, and HIV patients.
He defended the choice as an example of capitalism in action, claiming that insurance and other programs ensured that those in need of Daraprim would eventually receive it. However, the move prompted criticism, from the medical community to Congress.
Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli
Attorney Thomas Huff said the Supreme Court’s Monday ruling was upsetting, but the high court could still overturn a lower court judgment that allowed the $64 million penalty order even though Shkreli had not personally received the money.
“If and when the Supreme Court does so, Mr. Shkreli will have a strong argument for modifying the order accordingly,” he told reporters.
Shkreli was freed from prison in 2022 after serving most of his seven-year sentence.
SOURCE | AP
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