They may have thought they had seen it all but for the immigration officials at Germany's Frankfurt Airport, the doe-eyed 14-year-old Thai girl peering over the counter would present one of their more memorable on-the-job anecdotes. There she stood with her silky locks, soft voice and petite frame, carrying a passport that clearly stated she was a boy. Her slender hands, shy smile and her dress unequivocally screamed the opposite, yet there it was in black and white: 'Given name: Kitchon; sex: male,' next to a mug shot of a rather formally dressed little boy.
'They saw my face and then they saw the passport. They didn't believe it,' says Kitchon, who prefers to go by her nickname, Bell. 'They thought I was a terrorist, I guess.'
The officials took her to a room where a cross examination began, involving a call to her parents in Bangkok, Thailand, and a meeting with her grandmother, a resident of Germany, who had come to the airport to collect Bell. After an hour, the stories matched up, head-scratching gave way to bemusement and the passport was stamped.
Bell is a male-to-female transsexual and the airport incident, while amusing, was a minor indignity. Despite being born male, Bell, now 17, has lived most of her life as a girl. At the age of nine she refused to go to school unless she was allowed to grow her hair long. Her parents relented and asked the school, which gave its consent. She hasn't looked back since.
'At first the school didn't let me wear a skirt but I didn't care, I just wore it and went to school,' she says. 'My teacher understood me. She didn't say anything.'
For the most part, her family, teachers, friends - virtually everyone she's ever met - have accepted her female identity. Asked how she feels when referred to as katoey, a common and sometimes derogatory term for transsexual, Bell pauses before saying: 'No one has ever called me a katoey.'
Thailand is famous - some might say infamous - for its 'ladyboys'. In the western mind, they are deceptive beauties who lure inebriated foreigners to bed only to reveal a sobering surprise. They are cabaret artistes and prostitutes, subjects of perverse fascination in the land where 'anything goes'.