Transgender trauma

PhuketGazette – Source: Siang Tai

While some tourists jet in from around the globe specifically to enjoy the androgynous charms of Patong?s legion of ladyboy prostitutes, there are still cases cases where off-guard male tourists end up with a ladyboy under the misunderstanding that he is a real woman.

Such misunderstandings can ? and often do ? result in disaster, as two recent reports in the local press have shown.

Green season: The first case happened on September 9, at about 3:30 am, when Pol Col Prasit Yodthong received a report from staff at the Thara Patong Hotel that outside the hotel a group of enraged ladyboys were beating senseless two Saudi tourists.

Col Prasit and eight motorcycle patrol policemen were soon at the scene, pulling the furious ladyboys off the Saudi men and taking them into custody.

Off to Kathu Police Station went the ladyboys, while their victims, with gashes on their heads and wrists from being slashed with knives, were rushed to Patong Hospital, conveniently located right across the street from the scene of the fight.