Sunday, September 21, 2008

They're Ready; Howabout Y'all?



I found a report on BBC South Asia this week that discussed a secondary school in Thailand that has recently opened a separate toilet for transsexual students. The principal said that between 10 and 20 percent of the students at the school identify as transsexuals. "Katoi", or Ladyboys, are very common in Thailand, and now this school has taken a step towards acknowledging them. The students who now use the transsexual toilets seemed to be happy to have a place to be themselves now, whereas in the past, they were either bullied in the boys’ bathroom, or made the female students uncomfortable in theirs.




Just reading a summary of the article first made me question the idea as "going too far" as a knee jerk reaction. Even, as a gay man, I'm really cautious about progressive steps that can be viewed that way. It wasn't until I saw this video that I actually was happy for the students. They're very proud of who they are and seem to not fear any repercussions for demanding equality.

What I'm interested in is how America, great superpower that it is, has, for the last fifty years, sat back and watched "third world" nations jump enormous social and cultural hurdles. We're asking ourselves if gay couple should be allowed to get married while "3rd world" nations like South Africa legalized gay marriage more than a decade ago. We ask ourselves if we're ready for women leaders when India, Pakistan, the Philippines and a host of other countries have elected women as heads of state for years. We question issues of gay rights.....and Thailand builds transsexual toilets.


I've posted a Reuters video report and you can check out the BBC report at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7529227.stm



2 comments:

Jackie said...

I really enjoyed this article. I think it's interesting that America is so far behind with regards to gay rights but that somehow this country still is the world leader in virtually every other way.

More to the issue I have a question: Doesn't Johnston have a gender neutral bathroom somewhere in either Bekins or Holt? I don't personally know if we have self-identifying transsexuals on this campus but I feel as if I've heard of Johnston's bathroom more than a few times.

Joe said...

No, it's just that Johnston kids are perfectly comfortable sharing bathrooms. It is convenient....but something still creeped me out about being in a stall next to a girl...it just felt awkward lol