Thai Transgender Sex Workers in Europe

Abstract Transgender immigrants in sex work have been understudied in the literature of gender and migration. Through an ethnographic study and in-depth interviews, this chapter explores experiences of Thai transgender sex workers in Europe and their European customers. Their accounts reveal the complexity of sex work, as not just economic exchanges but intimate bodily encounters loaded with colonial racialized gender and sexual imagination. The notions of strong masculine European body and an “exoticized” feminine Asian body underlie the sexual desire of both parties. Sex work constitutes an important bridge that leads Thai transgender women (Kathoey)’s migration to Europe as same-sex partners of European men. In their European countries of destination, sex work not only advances Kathoeys’ economic status but also provides self-esteem as a “valued women.” Participants’ sexuality and self-pride are validated by male customers and society; they feel accepted as beautiful women by white male clients who desire them enough to spend money on their companionship and body service.