Nong Toom: Film Analysis

The weakness the director made in this film is that in a match, Nong Toom was embarrassed on the ring. In fact, the boxing establishment embraced her for who she is. As in the documentary, Middle Sexes - Redefining He and She, Professor Sam Winter stated that “We, in the west, had a lot to learn from Thai society, Thai culture, more or less readily accept transgender people” (Thomas, 2005). The film overemphasized the reaction of the people in the Thai boxing stadium. In my opinion, it would be better if the director showed how Nong Toom would deal with discrimination on the street or at the shopping mall. In reality, she faced discrimination in places other than the boxing stadium. According to an interview, Nong Toom tried to prove to people

She would have to be a kathoey without going through the sex reassignment surgery. Some kathoey did not do the surgery because they do not have money, so they might give up along the way. The film kept emphasized how Nong Toom was fighting to be the best boxer so the society will accept her. What if the society does not care about her? The reputation that she is working toward would be meaningless. From what I know, there was a spectrum of how the kathoey reassignment their anatomical sex. In the Middle Sexes documentary, there was a kathoey who chose not to do the sex reassignment at all, and for most of them, they still had their male genital

The Transsexual have a resistance to their bodies, the experience of gender dysphoria. Similar Nong Toom, they would try to find money to do the sex reassignment surgery as soon as they could. They are different from the gay men because they identify themselves as heterosexual women, even though they are attracted toward men as well (LeVay & Baldwin, 2012). When text describes that transgender is like when “women trapped in men’s bodies”, I do not understand what it meant. The textbook Human Sexuality asked the readers to imagine themselves in the body of the opposite sex in one day, likely they will be shock, discomfort, and pray to go back to their old selves. (LeVay & Baldwin, 2012). After viewing the documentary in class about the middle sex and watching the film, I am convinced that the transgender are not comfortable with their bodies since they know to how to express their