Emily and I were up bright and early at 05h45, off to the Beauty Parlour. It was Emily’s big day – leading her school’s parade in town, and the head teacher had insisted that Emily’s hair, clothing, make-up, etc be done by professionals. She’d seen my attempts at a previous event and decided to take drastic action!

We arrived at the beauty parlour – and I felt as if I’d walked into a movie or something, so unreal was the experience. Five transvestites, or “ladyboys” , in various stages of undress, were prancing around getting a group of (teenage) girls ready for the same parade. There was giggling, and gushing, and dancing, and …

I sat quietly in a corner trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. This is NOT a world I am used to, not a place I am comfortable being in.

The head teacher thought these transvestites were quite adorable, and oh so well-mannered. They referred to themselves as “dichan” and ended their sentences with “jiaw” which is lovely and polite.

I was not happy, I admit, at the amount of attention these women/men were lavishing Emily. I don’t think they had anything other than good intentions, but I was still uncomfortable. Fortunately there were a lot of girls to be made-up, so we were out of there in less than 45 minutes.

We raced across town to the parade. All the schools put something up front that distinguished their school – one school has a swimming pool (the only one in town with one) so they had a few kids kitted out with goggles and swim-suits. Another school has a focus on the environment this year – their parade leader wore a magnificent ballgown made from plastic bags. Awesome.

But a couple of schools had their transvestites out front, leading their schools parade. “Transvestites” is not quite the right word for these people. The Thai term for them is “kathoey” which is defined as “an effeminate gay male” or “a male to female transgender person”. Many Thai surgeons specialize in male-to-female sex reassignment surgery.

Kathoeys are often very beautiful – elegant and graceful, with smooth skin. Some believe this may be part of the reason they are so open. They are very much accepted in Thai society.

It struck me that Thai children grow up encountering kathoeys as a normal part of their daily lives – they work in schools, at the beauty parlour, at Big C (and, yes, thousands are in the sex industry), they lead their schools’ parades. Basically, it’s the norm and its acceptable. TV programmes feature them – not to be laughed at but as a matter of course.

I realize it’s a very complex issue, and I cannot do it much justice in this short article, and I sincerely hope that this does not come across as critical or judgmental. Nevertheless I have to say that my heart ached for these young boy/girls in the parade last Saturday. AND for all the children watching them and thinking it was normal, beautiful, lovely, acceptable to have kathoeys leading their school parade.

Emily asked me all about the kathoeys at the beauty parlour. She knew something was not quite right, but couldn’t understand what it was. I tried to explain, as best I could, to an innocent 5-year old. And in the end, Emily said “I know what they are Mom, they are Phuu Mai Ruu” which translated means “people who don’t know”. Indeed, they don’t. They don’t know who they are, they don’t know the God who created them, they don’t know the Truth.

Please pray for the children of Thailand!