{"id":4583,"date":"2011-08-01T12:58:01","date_gmt":"2011-08-01T16:58:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=4583"},"modified":"2011-07-28T21:46:23","modified_gmt":"2011-07-29T01:46:23","slug":"buddhist-monks-teach-maleness-to-ladyboys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/08\/buddhist-monks-teach-maleness-to-ladyboys","title":{"rendered":"Buddhist monks teach maleness to ‘ladyboys’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Chiang Khong, Thailand<\/strong>\u00a0— The 15-year-old aspiring “ladyboy” delicately applied a puff of talcum powder to his nose – an act of rebellion at the Thai Buddhist temple where he is learning to “be a man”.<\/span><\/h1>\n<\/div>\n

“They have rules here that novice monks cannot use powder, make-up, or perfume, cannot run around and be girlish,” said Pipop Thanajindawong, who was sent to Wat Kreung Tai Wittaya, in Chiang Khong on the Thai-Laos border, to tame his more feminine traits.<\/p>\n

But the monks running the temple’s program to teach masculinity to boys who are “katoeys,” the Thai term for transsexuals, have their controversial work cut out.<\/p>\n

“Sometimes we give them money to buy snacks but he saved it up to buy mascara,” headteacher Phra Pitsanu Witcharato said of Pipop.<\/p>\n

Novice monks’ days pass as in any other temple – waking before dawn, collecting alms and studying Buddhism – but every Friday attention turns to the katoeys at the attached school.<\/p>\n

“Were you born as a man or a woman or can you not specify your gender – not man or woman?” asked Phra Pitsanu at a recent assembly. “You cannot be anything else but your true gender, which is a man. As a novice you can only be a man.”<\/p>\n

The temple has a stricter interpretation than others of rules governing behaviour during Buddhist training that is a key childhood experience for many Thai boys.<\/p>\n

Pupils are banned from using perfume and make-up and prohibited from singing, playing music and running.<\/p>\n

“We cannot change all of them but what we can do is to control their behaviour to make them understand that they were born as a man… and cannot act like a woman,” said Phra Pitsanu.<\/p>\n

CLICK HERE to read full story<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chiang Khong, Thailand\u00a0— The 15-year-old aspiring “ladyboy” delicately applied a puff of talcum powder to his nose – an act of rebellion at the Thai Buddhist temple where he is learning to “be a man”. “They have rules here that novice monks cannot use powder, make-up, or perfume, cannot run around and be girlish,” said…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[972,102],"tags":[224,1181,667],"class_list":["post-4583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buddhist","category-feature","tag-buddhism","tag-ladyboys","tag-thailand"],"yoast_head":"\nBuddhist monks teach maleness to 'ladyboys'<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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