Secondary School Sets Up Transvestite Restroom

A secondary school in rural Thailand has built a “transvestite toilet” restroom for its cross-dressing students.  After a school survey indicated that 200 of the school’s 2,600 students are transvestites, the school felt it was time to put up a special unisex restroom for these students.

On the door, the traditional gender symbol is a human figure split between a half man (in blue) and half woman (in red). Below the symbol is the sign “Transvestite Toilet.”

“I’m so happy about this,” said Vichai Sangsakul, a teenager with a hairdo pulled back with a pink barrette. “It looks bad going to female restrooms. What would other people think?”

“These students want to be able to go to the restroom in peace without fear of being watched, laughed at or groped,” said school director Sitisak Sumontha.

Rural Thailand is as conservative as most rural areas in the world, but the school’s new policy reflects Thai culture’s general tolerance for transvestites and transgendered citizens.

Kampang is not Thailand’s first to set up a Transvestite Toilet, though it is the first secondary school to do so.  A technical college in the northern province of Chiang Mai set up a “Pink Lotus Bathroom” for its 15 transvestite students in 2003.

Deputy Education Minister Boonlue Prasertsopar recently said the ministry plans to count the number of transvestite university students.  He said he was not an advocate for transgendered students, but is ready to adapt Thailand’s school to the country’s growing transvestite and transgendered student population. “If there are a lot of them in a university and it’s a problem,” he said, “we may have to consider building toilets and dormitories for them.”