The Chinese Niche

My most recent project focuses on trans Chinese individuals who travel to Thailand for gender-affirming surgeries. In the broader context of the rise of China in Southeast Asia, I examine how Chinese trans medical travelers, as an emerging global consumer class, figure into a nation-specific niche market in the shifting multi-racial landscape of Bangkok’s neoliberal, foreign-oriented gender-affirming care economy.

My preliminary fieldwork in Bangkok and Shanghai investigates the various actors that sustain and mediate the trans Sino-Thai itineraries. Additionally, I approach Bangkok as a contact zone where trans Chinese mingle with and (mis)recognize the diverse flows of trans subjectivities that converge in Bangkok, and within this context, how Chinese transgender vernaculars meet the global imaginaries of modern trans identities.

Photo by Thelma Wang. Phaya Thai neighborhood in Bangkok, Thailand, 2024.