Gender Identity Construction of Homosexual (Kathoey) Student Teachers in Educational Area

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the identity construction of kathoey or bisexual student teachers in the educational area.   This is qualitative research that descriptive analysis was used to describe the research findings. The samples in this research were the kathoey student teachers in the educational area, namely, the Faculty of Education, Kamphaeng Phet Rajabhat University, the Faculty of Education, Chulalongkorn University, and the Faculty of Technology, Rajamangala University of Technology Krungthep.

The study found that kathoey student teachers were suppressed by the regulations of dress codes in the universities. This led to unequal discrimination because they were students whose gender appearance did not match their gender of origin, i.e., act and dress like women, or changed their physical appearance to women.  Therefore, kathoey student teachers had to compromise with the educational structure through identity-building operations by sending complaints to the Board of Judges of Unfair Discrimination Between the Sexes, the Department of Women's Affairs and Family Institutions, the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security, which is the central agency to coordinate operations on promoting equality between the sexes and determine which unfair discrimination or actions against the laws under Section 3 of the Gender Equality Act 2015.  The negotiations with such structures were successful, and created changes to the regulations under the educational structure to match the identity of kathoey student teachers. Moreover, the universities should create a way to communicate and gain more understanding regarding gender diversity and sexual identity. So, the professor and staff could understand and respect bisexual students in their universities.