Lesbianism needs no fixing, seminar says
A recent seminar underlines the fact that gender identity cannot be fixed, but public attitudes can
Male TV-talk-show host Wuthithorn “Woody” Milintachinda announced recently that he’s married a man. The news in a way served as a long-awaited clarification given that Wuthithorn’s sexual identity has always been in question. Indeed, it’s received a mixed bag of reactions.
While the newly-wed received warm congratulations from friends, families and a portion of online society, they also faced criticism and insults. Derogatory words often passed off as jokes like sai leuang (yellow strand) and khood thong (digging for gold) — all implying anal sex — were left as comments under news of the couple online. The same thing happens with other gay-related news.
If it’s instead a marriage between two women, the words shift. If it were a tomboy (a butch lesbian) marrying a dee (a feminine lesbian), comments like “fixing tomboy” or “change a tomboy back into her” would be used. They all imply the same thing: homosexual women can be “cured” — made heterosexual — by having sex with men.
“Nowadays, we see people frequently putting these phrases online with no worry or embarrassment at all. And it doesn’t end up just a passing word. It affects behaviour, too, as well as human lives,” said Varaporn Chamsanit, manager of the Women Wellbeing Programme.
These sayings may seem a joke to many, but they’re a reflection of people’s attitude — of insults, disrespect and lack of acceptance toward gender diversity, especially toward women and those assigned femininity at birth (ie, transgender men). And some transcend the verbal and become physical attacks, often manifested as sexual assault.
To address the issue, a forum was held a couple weeks ago, on June 28, on the topic “Fixing tomboy and repairing dee is violence. Stop it” at Thammasat University, which saw a gathering of gender activists, academics and the LGBT community to discuss this pressing problem.
“This discussion is quite different from the previous ones we’ve had on violence,” said panellist Assoc Prof Kritaya Archavanitkul, an academic from Mahidol University’s Institute for Population and Social Research. “We are discussing women — tomboys — whose gender identity is a threat to manhood.
“People often think homosexual women have to try ‘the real thing’ so they would be ‘cured’. But it’s a fact all around the world that some women who have had a husband also have girlfriends later in their lives,” said Kritaya.
“In the Thai language, we even refer to a penis as jao loke — the king of the world. Female sexual organs, on the other hand, are compared to mhor, or a pot. Prejudice is already apparent in the linguistics.”
Some members of the audience suggested that, as some butch lesbians act and behave manlike, they garner unwanted attention and cause irritation for men, who end up assaulting them to teach them a lesson — a form of punishment against a weaker sex. Further suggestions also brought to light that homosexual women are raped by their own family members in order to turn them straight. A cure, once again.
“These are hate crimes borne from nothing but hate and prejudice,” insisted Kritaya. “And no one has the right to ‘fix’ others.”
Kritaya explained that, according to 2013-2014 criminal data from the Royal Thai Police, 28,714 women reported they were assaulted. However, only 12,245 women pressed charges. Worse, only 13% of the attackers were caught. She also presented information on cases where butch lesbians were murdered for their sexuality.
“It’s also a fact that, in Thailand and other countries, many women — butch lesbians included — don’t report the incident to authorities when they’re assaulted. Even if it’s a physical attack, not a sexual one, they don’t report it either,” explained the academic. Feeling ashamed, as though they’ve committed a sin, victims often retreat to silence and self-punishment.
“And whenever there’s a rape, people tend to blame the victim first, whether they are women, transgender individuals or lesbians,” said Varaporn, the talk’s moderator. “People would ask what they did to instigate the attack. Were they too innocent? Were they drunk? Did they dress revealingly?
“People don’t really view it as an assault, though. They don’t question that the attackers are breaking the law and should be punished for their crime. Sexual violence can happen to any gender. Still, most victims are females and transgender persons — whether female-to-male or male-to-female.”
There’s currently no data or study on whether the derogatory words eventually lead to any of the crimes, or if the verbal attacks correlate to the physical assaults. Still, continual usage supports and spreads misunderstandings, while also instilling hate, prejudice and normalising a hate crime — whether verbal or physical — in our society.
“It’s quite hard to fix the problem when society still sees and acknowledges only two genders,” suggested Athittaya Asa, a postgraduate student at Thammasat University who was also on the panel. “This knowledge should be inserted into our education curriculum. It should be one mission for the activists to go for.”
Another panellist also agreed education is the solution.
“To solve gender-based violence, we have to teach people correctly about gender, and create understanding in the wider community,” said activist Kanattsanan Dokput from FTM Bangkok, an NGO for transmen.
Kritaya feels that, aside from fixing the syllabus, laws needs to be properly put in place and enforced in order to make it clear that these acts are unacceptable — both to society and in legal practice.
“It’s a bad culture here where culprits often go free, unpunished. If this situation can’t be fixed, then attackers will keep on attacking, because they think they can do it,” she said.
Later, social activist Paisarn Likhitpreechakul raised a question on whether our society actually realises such hateful behaviour and acts of brutality are unacceptable.
“If society doesn’t realise it, that’s one thing. But if society realises it yet continues to engage in such violence anyway, that’s another sort of problem altogether,” he said. “It becomes a kind of violence that the society approves of and is used to witnessing — a social sanction.”
“Can Thai society really live with gender diversity?. Or is it still clinging to the Thai value that we should all have to think the same and follow the same principles, whether it’s in regards to gender, political opinions or religious beliefs?”
These are crimes borne from nothing but hate and prejudice. And no one has the right to ‘fix’ others