Nong Toom prances around the ring waiting to land another punch or kick on her male opponent as her black, glossy hair, pulled back in a pony-tail, swings to and fro. Despite the detached look on her face, she is hurting. Her breasts have been tightly strapped for protection and her muscles and bones throb from the kicks, punches and elbow strikes she has traded with Japan's Kenshiro Lookchaomaekhemthong.
The fight has been going for three rounds, and both welterweight combatants look exhausted. The sticky February heat in the Thai seaside town of Pattaya is not helping. Both fighters are trying hard not to show their pain and fatigue; in Thai kickboxing, or Muay Thai, fighters are supposed to be courageous, tenacious and composed.
Suddenly, Nong Toom unleashes a devastating elbow strike that causes Lookchaomaekhemthong to lose his footing. It seals the match. The judges declare her the winner and the crowd cheers. It's her first fight since coming back from six years in retirement but, rather than celebrating, Nong Toom is just relieved there has been no damage to her valuable face during the bout. She walks over to Lookchaomaekhemthong and gently kisses him on the cheek, leaving a pink lip-gloss mark. The crowd roars. There is a ripple of excited chatter: it's just like the Nong Toom of old, say some voices in the crowd. When Nong Toom was a man, he also kissed his boxing rivals, but back then he preferred bright red lipstick.
IN PERSON, 25-YEAR-OLD Nong Toom is not what you expect. At 170cm, she is not tall and her petite figure is hardly that of a brawny boxer. When this is pointed out, Nong Toom seems pleased. 'I've been worried my muscles might be getting too big in training and I don't want them to because it would be too much for a female figure,' she says in a husky, quiet voice. It has been six months since Nong Toom fought Lookchaomaekhemthong, a bout that took place in the gym where she works and trains when she isn't away on acting or modelling assignments. An international-award-winning film, Beautiful Boxer, has been made about Nong Toom's unconventional life and her decision to give up a career as a champion male fighter.
She is dressed in her training gear: tight long grey pants and a see-through pink Billabong T-shirt that reveals a bright yellow bra and convincing breasts beneath. Her nails are manicured, her eyebrows shaped and her lips shine with pink gloss. She is attractive and first impressions suggest the 120,000 baht (HK$24,800) sex-change operation, which doesn't include the cost of hormone-replacement pills, has been money well spent.
But why make such a life-altering choice? The mental and physical anguish an individual must endure to change sex is considerable. And even then the operation does not fully change one's gender - the surgery might alter Nong Toom's appearance but her chromosomes will always be male. A 1988 Dutch study claimed that one in 12,000 men cross the gender divide. However, other studies have suggested the figure is more like one in 30,000. Medical science struggles to explain why some people are transsexuals and the answer offered by Thai society isn't much more illuminating. Thais believe that katoeys - the Thai word for gays, transvestites and transsexuals - are suffering bad karma from a previous life.