Transvestites Banned from Thai Medical Schools

Story here. Apparently there’s been an informal ban for some time. I think they’re thinking of making it official.

Maybe they think transvestites belong in nursing school? :smiley: (Don’t hate me. :frowning: )

I’m a bit biased because of my two months on the Equality Ride (google it), but those policies are downright civil when you compare them to some of the private schools in America…

Wait…isn’t Thailand the country that just created an entirely separate category in its military for transgendered people specifically so they could serve? Exactly what kind of stigma (or lack thereof) is there in Thailand, anyway?

Well, from where I’m sitting (Spain), creating a separate category for transgendered soldiers is discrimination.

We’ve got male soldiers, female soldiers, at least one MtF soldier who switched while serving…

I think the idea was that beforehand they couldn’t serve at all, and service in Thailand is mandatory, so it would show up as a blot on their records when they tried to go to school or get a house or something later in life. So they were making improvements, apparently.

Mandatory service always carries the possibility of not serving due to medical reasons: was there more social stigma linked to “mili not done due to medical reasons” (which could be asthma or flat feet or thick glasses) than to being transgendered?

Probably not. But they may have been short on healthy soldiers and not willing to just stop discriminating by reason of gender.

Yeah, that’s them. So transvestites can shoot you but not heal you. :smiley: