The making of a local queen in an international transsexual beauty contest

Abstract

This paper will examine the intricacies in beauty contests and the tensions brought about by the negotiation of a local, authentic culture in the face of Western-derived notions of beauty and femininity. Thailand’s many beauty contests feature as an inept part of Thai society, with an emphasis on the ‘public face’ and beauty. Thailand has been romanticised as a land of beautiful women and more recently, of beautiful kathoey. One of the aims of my paper is to determine the importance of beauty contests, not just as ‘anti-pageants’, but as a means to consolidate a transsexual identity. However, it can also be shown that beauty contests are both sites of empowerment and subjugation simultaneously.