the third sex

My old friend Seymour Totti interviewed me a while back for his site (you can find the full interview here ) and during the course of a long conversation about the origins of my interest in ladyboys, he asked me if I had ever had any interest in the more camp aspects of British theatre.
 
It was a fair enough question. Any British kid going to a pantomime is going to see men dressed as women (and girls dressed as boys), and there is an honourable tradition of female impersonators and drag artists that goes back way into history.
 
Seymour mentioned one name in particular, Danny La Rue, who was a famous female impersonator during the time when I was an adolescent and consequently open to anything which had even the vaguest hint of sexuality about it.
 
Did such acts ever prod your curiosity, he asked me.
 
No, was the answer. Not in the slightest. I found Danny La Rue to be tedious and embarrassing. The same went for pantomime dames and drag characters in stage farces, and even as a kid I would find them silly and completely unfunny. Drag queens are a different species, but they always seemed to be middle-aged men trying to fulfil fantasies of their own, and I had no interest in them.
 
In other words, I didn’t find any of them provocative or entertaining. I found them really rather distasteful. As to the origin of men dressing as women for stage productions, I would assume that has its roots in the time when women were not allowed on stage, and female roles were taken by boys and men.

Seymour then asked me about the Thai theatre’s long history of casting males in female roles. I said that I thought essentially that tradition sprang from a different source.
 
Ancient Buddhist texts including the Tipitaka, on which the Buddhist scriptures of Thailand, Burma, and Sri Lanka are based, recognise the existence of at least three sexes, and sometimes as many as five.
 
Traditionally, Thais believe that karma is the reason a person is born as transsexual. The kathoey is paying back for transgressions in a previous existence, and is therefore to be pitied and possibly even envied, because she is in the process of working off a large spiritual debt, presumably leaving the way clear for a better existence next time round

So the kathoey is accepted as being part of society. You will find them throughout Thailand. In provincial towns everywhere, you will find a kathoey community. In the remotest villages you are even likely to find one or two. Visit a temple fair, and you will almost invariably see a kathoey beauty contest, or a stage performance featuring kathoeys. Out of this grew the cabaret concept.

So I believe that the tradition of ladyboy stage performers reflects the fact that they have always been an important part of Thai society, on one level having a very visible presence that is hard to ignore, and on another level having a spiritual quality that can be used to good dramatic effect. They are also of course used to add humour to a theatrical production. Whether performing for the royal court or for makeshift stage shows out in the sticks, a production would reflect life and would also need to entertain.
 
It is all a fascinating subject, and as I have said on this page before, one that cries out for serious research.