[JayBee]

It is very easy to jump to the conclusions that there are so many ladyboys because a lot of guys see the opportunity to don wig, make-up, etc., and make an "easy" buck in the tourist/sex trade. I think this is probably true in a few cases, but generally untrue.

Let me tell you of a case I observed. Once I went and spent a week with a FL at her house in a town 50 kilometers from BKK. She had a son, who was about 9yrs old(give or take, hard to remember). He was a very sweet gentle boy. One night after dinner, one of her friends that was there, said to the boy, who was a cheerleader at the school, "Show us how you do the cheers!" He proceeded to do a totally feminine "Britney Spears" kind of dance, singing the cheers as he went along, shaking his fanny, smiling, and making flirtatious looks with his eyes and gestures with his hands. It was just like watching a girl cheerleader.

His mother told me that when she had asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, "Policeman, doctor, lawyer?" then he replied to her, "I want to be a ladyboy." He lived in an area where there were no ladybars, and no tourist trade. When I walked down the streets in that town, a lot of people stopped and stared as if they had never seen a farang. I never saw a single farang in that town the whole week I was there. I don't think the kid had a clue that his mother was working as a FL in BKK. She had only been in the biz a few months, and had worked as a receptionist for an engineering firm all her life before that. She was 34 yrs. old. I was the first farang she had ever brought to her home.

So I don't think that this boy was influenced by the tourist trade or making a living that way. He was simply a very feminine boy who liked the things that girls like and didn't like the things that boys like. So he saw himself as a boy who felt more like he was a girl than a boy, i.e., a future ladyboy.

His mother was not at all pleased about it. She said she wished he was a normal boy. But she accepted the reality of who he was. Oh, well, looks like he's going to be a LB, she said, with a sigh of resignation. Then she added, "at least, he won't get involved in all the fighting and rough life that these gang boys get into. Too bad for him that he is not prettier, though. I don't think he has a good face for a LB!" Actually, I thought he was kind of cute, except he had really big ears that stuck straight out.