The military service in Thailand it’s a real lottery. In the month of April, the Asian country kicks off its particular recruitment process that has been in place for seventy years now: all men who turn 21 can be recruited. Well, candidates must draw a card: whoever draws a red card will be recruited for two years, while whoever draws a black card is exempt from fulfilling the service and can return home. But in the last few hours there has been a lot of talk about another fact: the recruitment of two trans beauty queens.
A few days ago in Kaset Wisai, a district in the south-west of the Buddhist kingdom, two 21-year-old trans women showed up at the recruitment centre. The first is Kantong Passarapon, known online as “The Angel of Thai Bay,” an influencer crowned beauty queen in several Kathoey pageants. The second is instead Parida Kerayuphan, a student at Sripatum University in Bangkok with almost 70 thousand followers on Instagram. Both presented themselves with a certificate of gender reassignment surgery, a document necessary to request exemption from military service.
Despite the exemption, the two transsexuals showed up at the recruitment center to avoid unpleasant trouble: according to Thai laws, anyone who does not comply with the obligation faces up to three years in prison. More complicated path for transsexuals who have not undergone surgery: according to a report from the Center for Social Studies of Southeast Asia Indonesia, to obtain a medical certificate they must undergo an interrogation with more than 800 questions asked by one psychiatrist in a military hospital.
Every year the army recruits between 80 and 100 thousand soldiers, depending on the birth rate. As reported by Scmpa spokesperson for the Thai Defense Ministry said that this year 40,000 of the 85.
000 places were allocated via lottery.
