Thomas Beatie is Asian! Reclaiming Trans Histories of Colour
By Guest Contributor Mitsuru Mitsuru
So I heard a while ago that celeb transman Thomas Beatie is a mixie much like myself. He too has a white mama, an Asian daddy, and originally, an Asian surname. He too was born with all the plumbing to make and be pregnant with a baby. And like me, he too made the decision to get folks to recognize him as male.
So I get the whole need to change your gender thing. However, I’m not sure why Beatie changed his name to something rid of all associations to his Filipino heritage. I too had the option to change my name to rid myself of my Asian ethnic associations, however, I didn’t based on the fact that so often trans folks of colour are told they are doing a white thing by being trans. As if every culture has the same rules around gender binaries and the act of crossing them is only done by those white enough.
Coincidentally, when I was born, my white mother gave me a Japanese name without knowing the implications (highly-gendered at that) that went along with it. Taking this into account, I chose a Japanese name for myself. I chose one which, just like my mother in her choosing of my original name, I didn’t expressly know the meaning of. I did so in line with honoring my white mother and my mixed origins.
I wanted to keep my Asian association when renaming myself, to let people know that just because I’m trans doesn’t mean I’m white. There is a rich history of third gender or other wise non-male and non-female specific people within many cultures, including pre-Spanish Philippines. For example, in the islands known now as the Phillipines, Binabe were high order religious authorities of mixed-gender, just as gender-transforming deity Kuan-yin in Chinese Taoist tradition is still highly esteemed today.
And the only article that stuck with me from my first year women’s studies class pointed to various 17th-century Chinese reports of people who were born male and ended up female or vice versa, yet were considered to be in line with the fluid nature of yin and yang. They were not considered perverse or worthy of ridicule as many people of gender-transitioning experience are subject to today.
In many cultures of colour, pre-colonial history includes these societies valuing these people specifically because they are outside the norm of gender, often chosen for positions of spiritual power and authority. However, rigid reforms in gender occurring in the white west, coupled with the need to topple indigenous authority figures influenced European colonizers to seek out and destroy these people. Violent and strategic colonization means that history validating Thomas’s and my trans experience as Asian genderf*ckers now is hard to come by. Transphobia is rampant in former colonized places, as a legacy of colonialism. We have colonialism to thank for much of the violence we experience, particularly as racialized trans folks. (For more on the Binabe, take a look at this book on Philippine Gay Culture.)
And now, because of this erased history, it is our very Asianness that is often used against us to make transphobic and racist comments, “Oh it must be hard with your Baachan more so than on your mom’s side,” “Hey, we don’t do that kind of freaky shit, we’re Asian.” Which makes me sad.
I don’t feel that Thomas sold us mixie-Asian trans guys out. There are many reasons around a person’s name choice and I don’t know his exact ones.
It is true, however, that I’m sad people don’t know the world’s most famous trans man is also Asian.
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A version of this article was originally published at 8Asians.
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of 
january olympus wrote:
thanks for writing this, very interesting
Posted 30 Jul 2009 at 10:10 am ¶
Iggles wrote:
Wow. Interesting. It really brings up, “What’s in a name?” To me, Thomas clearly looks Asian/Mixed race. But I see you’re point at how many people haven’t made that connection because of his non-asian surname.
Posted 30 Jul 2009 at 12:34 pm ¶
LaurynX wrote:
Thanks for this. I always enjoy reading about fellow LGBT ppl of color. I had no idea that Thomas Beatie was Asian.
Posted 30 Jul 2009 at 1:29 pm ¶
Ann wrote:
don’t you mean he’s half-asian?
Posted 30 Jul 2009 at 1:37 pm ¶
atlasien wrote:
@Ann: what standpoint are you asking that question from? If it’s from a point of reinforcing Asian racial exclusivity, I disagree with its appropriateness.
Posted 30 Jul 2009 at 1:50 pm ¶
ashlynn wrote:
Sometimes I wonder if the reason why race or heritage in this situation is largely looked over is because of the perceived “otherness” that is being transgender comes to the forefront and therefore takes precedence. I think that when people read about Thomas or see him on television, they mainly focus on the fact that he is a man having a baby, and not so much his Asian heritage. On one hand, it could maaabe be a positive step, but then again, criticism and discrimination toward the LGBT community generally tends to push race aside so that everyone can unite against the queer devilworshippers, you know? So perhaps it IS important that we know Thomas is Asian, so that others can follow his example and shake up those gender and sexuality constructs as well as the racial ones. Nothing wrong with killing two birds with one stone-well, save for having PETA on your ass, but you get the idea.
Posted 30 Jul 2009 at 3:29 pm ¶
Montclair Mommy wrote:
I had assumed that Thomas was half-Asian myself, but its good to have it confirmed because I sort of feel bad assuming a person’s racial background. I hadn’t thought about the fact that he had to choose his name before reading your post, stupid me. Now that I think about it, I have quite a lot of Asian male friends who go by the name Tom or Thomas instead of their given names, which they considered to be too hard to pronounce. I wonder what his birth female name was? Anyway, thought-provoking article.
Posted 30 Jul 2009 at 3:33 pm ¶
Montclair Mommy wrote:
I just read the above postings and I wanted to clarify when I said I assumed he was “half-Asian” I meant I assumed he had a mixed Asian background, not that he isn’t or can’t be fully Asian in identity. I completely acknowledge that a person with mixed racial background can identify in a variety of ways that are complex and can change throughout their life.
Posted 30 Jul 2009 at 3:37 pm ¶
TheDiversePurse wrote:
Nice article. It was obvious, to me, that he was mixed with Asian somewhere in his heritage but it wasn’t really mentioned, if at all, throughout the media. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing yet.
It could be seen as good because the media didn’t focus on his racial background and make a big issue out of it, but on the other hand I agree with the author in that Thomas wasn’t portrayed or seen as a POC engaging in this breakthrough.
Posted 30 Jul 2009 at 4:16 pm ¶
JC wrote:
Interesting… first of a Kuan-yin is not a Taoist deity but Buddhist. Being a 10th-bhumi Bodhisattva, Avalokiteshvara or Kuan-Yin in Chinese no longer have a fixed human form, thus he/she can appears as which ever gender which is most acceptable to the beings he or she wanted to help. In India and Tibet, he’s male, but in China, he became a she. This is well-known among Buddhists and no one has a problem with it, since sexual identity, like everything else, is just emptiness. You might have mistaken Kuan-yin as Taoist because she’s found in almost all Taoist temples, where she’s worshiped like any other Taoist deity like Mazu (”Patron Saint” of Taiwan).
As for trans-gender acceptance, well I think Asia is much more accepting. Just look at the legions of lady boys in Thailand to the popularity of “Newhalf” entertainers in Japan. Although there’s much less female to male transgender folks like Tommy here, but I still think it’s more acceptable than white societies. Take for example the status of the Takarazuka Revue all-women Musical theater troop in Japanese pop culture. All the male characters are played by women and each one of them has thousands of female fans. This is no farce here – this is considered part of Japanese high-culture. Although Lesbianism itself may still be a bit of taboo in Japan, woman dressing up as man is quite well accepted in the culture.
I think the idea that Asians are more biased against transgender folks is really which came from Asian-Americans, who are often MORE conservatives than native Asians back home. GBLT folks in most Asian countries do not fear of getting beaten by closet-case white guys or being called sinners, due to the lack of dominate Judeo-Christian religious dogma (and rednecks in general). Heck, in Ancient China, it is even customary for men of high learning to keep a homosexual lover before he’s married. Samurai often sleep together for fun. But who in the West cares about that when racist stereotypes will do?
Posted 30 Jul 2009 at 4:20 pm ¶
mixedqueer wrote:
yay mixed trans folx!
Posted 30 Jul 2009 at 4:55 pm ¶
Femme wrote:
“I think the idea that Asians are more biased against transgender folks is really which came from Asian-Americans, ”
Two years ago I was part of a study working on settlement services in Canada of south East Asian people of transexual and of transgender history.
From that I learned that there is indeed a stigma amongst various Asian countries, some harder then others, of being a person who is transexual or transgender.
Every thing from not being able to work at feeling like a leper in school, being refused various jobs to being shunned by family members.
Many of the people interviewed spoke of reasons such as those to why they left heir home country to travel to Canada and begin living their lives.
Thailand and the “lady boys” as were mentioned are a fine example of that. They are restricted from holding certain jobs, especially government jobs and now have their own bathroom at some schools. To me this speaks more about non acceptance then not and more towards just tolerating the person then respecting them for who they are.
Posted 30 Jul 2009 at 10:17 pm ¶
Femme wrote:
Sorry one more thing. The Thomas thing was odd in that he is not the first man to have had a baby and certainly isn’t the last or only one doing so in the men of trans history communities world wide.
He just seems to be the one who seemed to use it, media, for his own purpose when doing so. For that I have very mixed feelings about.
Posted 30 Jul 2009 at 10:20 pm ¶
JC wrote:
@Femme: of course there are still social stigma for being transexual – that exist everywhere. What I am saying is that they are better than the way they are treated in Western countries. Yes many Thai men felt Lady Boys gave Thai men the wrong image so they are discriminated against, but have you been to Thailand? Ladyboys are treated by average people has normal part of life. They walk on the street and no one would bat an eye. They do not fear getting beaten or shunned by their culture and religion. The Buddhist culture in Thailand made them perfectly acceptable – they were simply woman in former lives and born into the wrong body. In fact many Lady Boys are actually more religious than the average population. This is level acceptance transexuals can only dream of in the US.
Although homosexuality and transexuals are not fully accepted as part of society in Asia, but compare to countries dominated by Judeo-Christian religions they are much better off relatively.
Posted 31 Jul 2009 at 2:15 am ¶
atlasien wrote:
When it comes to Thailand… I saw the movie “Beautiful Boxer” and I was amazed at how easily the hero’s family accepted his identity. They were presented as being a close-knit family that was poor, rural and traditional… and at one point they just shrugged their shoulders and said something like “Looks like our child is transsexual. Oh well, pass the beans”. I’ve never heard any American coming-out narrative, memoir or fictional, that was even remotely like it.
From what I gather from reading about Thailand, there might not be legal parity (Thailand doesn’t have a good record with a lot of legal rights in general, e.g. the lese majeste law) but there’s an important cultural freedom-from-getting-beaten-up that doesn’t exist in a lot of places in the United States, even with our greater legal protection. I don’t think it would be presumptuous of me to say that trans people would prefer to enjoy greater legal AND cultural freedom.
But I’m sure there are variations within Thailand not to mention huge variations among East Asian and Southeast Asian countries… I’m really wary of a lot of these generalizing comparisons.
Posted 31 Jul 2009 at 9:38 am ¶
Maria P. wrote:
I usually lurk here, but I’ve gotta comment on this.
I wasn’t aware that Thomas Beatie was of mixed race. Totally awesome.
I live in deep southern Thailand, and I’m amazed at how accepting people are here of queer folks. In Bangkok, it was what I expected. However, I didn’t expect my Islamic school in a different cultural zone to have a young ladyboy volleyball team or openly gay and openly pious teachers! (The religion instructors grumble that those men sit with the women in the cafeteria, but that’s about it.) You also don’t expect your older friends to show you pictures of their soldier sons with their ladyboy girlfriends. “Isn’t she pretty? Don’t they look nice together?”
It’s amazing to compare this to the culture half an hour and one river away in northern Malaysia. Plenty of people have relations on both sides of the border, and I’ve heard some funny stories about culture clashes at family get-togethers!
To link the Beatie story to this, one of my coworkers saw an article on him in a parenting magazine. The whole office was in awe that such a thing could happen. I asked if there were any trans men in Thailand. They didn’t even know that it was possible. Butch women are par for the course, but nobody had ever heard of a ‘reverse ladyboy’.
Just the observations of a white San Franciscan abroad.
Posted 01 Aug 2009 at 11:50 am ¶
m. wrote:
He may have changed his name, but he was/is clearly able to pass for white in some peoples’ eyes. What I’m saying is that it’s more than a name which racializes a person. I mean, if people don’t know he’s Asian I’m pretty sure it’s not due to his name (a lot of Filipino people have Spanish surnames, though, so that doesn’t mean much if his father had one – a Spanish surname could mean a lot of things). I have some friends who are mixed with white that have white first AND last names, yet people don’t mistake them as anything other than non-white because they do not have the privilege of passing – the ability to be read as mixed or of a different ethnicity (and sometimes race), yes, but not pass. Many Native people, myself included, go by/have a given white first and/or last name. In my experience, the assumptions begin when people hear or read our names *before* they see our faces.
Who knows why he chose that name. I’m thinking he just liked the sound if it. I’m also thinking he’s a self-obsessed attention-seeker. Why a parent would turn pregnancy/childbirth into a circus is beyond me.
Also, this may sound nitpicky, but I’m not too sure how I feel about the word ‘ladyboy’ being used so casually here. I don’t know if it’s a loose English translation of a Thai word or if it’s just the slang that English-speaking travelers in Thailand use in conversation, but it sounds sort of demeaning. Maybe Thai people use it when speaking English, too, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t come off as exploitative and othering…especially when Westerners should probably be using ‘trans woman’ when, uh, bringing up someone’s history and therefore find it necessary to preface ‘girlfriend’, ‘wife’, et cetera with something. Because while their sex may be ‘trans’, their gender is certainly ‘female’…not “ladyboy”. I’m not making any assumptions about peoples’ race/ethnicities or histories on here, just, you know.
‘Trans’ and ‘queer’ are NOT the same thing, either. They’re not mutually exclusive, but I’m sick of people thinking they’re synonymous.
Posted 01 Aug 2009 at 9:19 pm ¶
mianoi wrote:
Just a couple of points I really wanted to add to this discussion, as a half-Thai, half-Filipina Brit.
Firstly, as a half-Filipino, Thomas Beatie’s surname is likely to sound Hispanic in origin rather than ‘Asian’; at least, that might be the assumption that less knowledgable people might make.
And about Thailand. It’s hard to discuss the Thai attitude towards katoey (’ladyboys’) as refracted through a Western lens, as the concept of gender fluidity is not as embedded in the culture. In Thailand, it’s tolerated, and accepted that some people just turn out that way. As other commenters have noted above, Buddhism plays its part in this acceptance. This doesn’t mean, however, that it is desired, or that people necessarily ‘approve’ (for want of a better word).
Posted 02 Aug 2009 at 8:03 am ¶
Maria P. wrote:
More anecdotal bits, with the usual caveats about anecdotal bits:
A lot of folks that I’ve met have been pretty open about being neither phu ying (female) nor phu chai (male) but kathoey. The folks that haven’t identified as such have probably flown right under my radar. (When I say kathoey in this comment, the folks who claim the term are the ones I’m talking about.) Also, the correct term, in my experience, just depends on what language we’re speaking at the moment.
Interestingly, if we’re speaking Malay, the word is also kathoey, rather than the more ‘correct’ Mak Nyah. Maybe it’s seen as a crossover from Thai culture rather than something indigenous to Malay society? Maybe local kathoeys themselves are identifying with the more prestigious, cosmopolitan role than the rural one? Maybe the more secular kathoey role is more acceptable/desirable than the magic-handling Mak Nyah? If people are open to talking about this, I may start asking…
Tangential re: Thomas Beatie, but quite relevant to reclaiming trans histories!
Posted 02 Aug 2009 at 11:31 am ¶
mitsuru_mitsuru wrote:
wow! so many commentors on racialicious! i’m not used to this.
thank you to JC for correcting the point i made about Kuan-yin. my family is traditionally buddhist, but i had no idea it is also a part of my religious history to be gender fluid! i wonder if i should think more seriously about coming out to the people at my temple?
i also just wanted to clarify one thing about spanish and asian names. while i originally had posted that Beatie originally had an asian last name, i am aware that that last name was actually spanish in origin. but as a diasporic child, i also realize that origins change with many things, especially colonialism. so while Beatie’s last name sounded spanish, i would say that it was a filipino name via spanish colonialism.
i’m glad you all enjoyed reading this!
Posted 03 Aug 2009 at 9:58 am ¶
JC wrote:
@mitsuru_mitsuru: Buddhism tend to be more accepting of GLBT than most other religion, thus you’ll find that many GLBT folks become part of Western Buddhist sanghas. I personally saw quite a few openly gay lesbians in our sangha. However, traditional Asian culture still has issue with homosexuality in general (I really can’t think of a culture which didn’t), and I suppose it comes from the fact that homosexuals do not procreate, which means they’re unable to perform their filial duties.
So unless your temple is made from progressive folks I’d say that you may still face stigma… not from being Buddhists, but being Japanese. Japan has been more accepting of gays than lesbians for some reason… but it has gotten a little better in recent years. Many young people are becoming VERY accepting of GLBT (to the point of being cool). But many older folks are still leery.
Speaking of which, since you’re Japanese I’m going to recommend a Japanese drama called “Last Friend” to you. It stars my favorite actress in the world, Ueno Juri, as a closet Lesbian who tried to hide her feelings for her best friend, who’s being physically abused by her boyfriend. This is a ground-breaking drama in Japan since it featured a Lesbian lead and taboo topics like domestic violence, childhood sexual abuse, and GLBT acceptance in society.
Read about it here:
http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Last_Friends
Watch with English subtitles here:
http://www.mysoju.com/last-friends/
Posted 03 Aug 2009 at 3:48 pm ¶