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Miss Thailand TG Contest Wows Crowd

By By Sutin Wannabovorn
Reuters

Contributed by Elizabeth Parker & Rachelle Austin
PATTAYA, Thailand
March 28, 1998

The Miss Thailand contest may have won the battle for beauty pageant viewers, but a devoted turnout for the country's first transvestite pageant proved beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

While Thai viewers were glued to their televisions sets on Saturday night to watch the Miss Thailand pageant, the Tiffany Theatre brimmed with cheering fans who came to see who would be crowned the queen of transvestites.

Hundreds of fans burst into wild cheers and applause when the judges anointed Thanaporn Wongprasert as Miss Tiffany 1998, the first transvestite beauty queen.

Thanaporn beat 69 other transvestites who paraded in show costumes, swimsuits and evening gowns during the two-day contest.

Contestants said they felt it important to be able to compete and show off their beauty.

Plastic surgery is not permitted in the mainstream Miss Thailand contest, which has produced two Miss Universe winners in the past four decades.

But for transvestites, it's a necessity.

"Compared to real women, I am confident that many of us are even more beautiful, because we can have plastic surgery to make us as beautiful as we like," Chatarika Issarapakdi, 22, a police department accountant who was one of the five finalists, told Reuters.

"Plastic flowers are sometimes more beautiful than the real ones," said Chatarika, who has already undergone surgery to change his sex organs to those of a woman.

The new Miss Thailand receives many prizes, including 800,000 baht ($21,300) and a luxury car, usually devotes her time to promoting the reputation of the country and often vows to use the money to further her education.

Not so for Miss Tiffany.

"I will spend this money for my beauty," Thanaporn said when asked how the 50,000 baht prize money would be sent.

The judges said that the large number of beautiful contestants made it hard to pick a winner on Saturday night.

"The most difficult point is when we have to pick one out of the final five. Once the beauty is equal we have to use knowledge, intellect and wit as factors to judge them," said chief judge Seri Wongmonta, a well known transvestite and an economist at Thammasat University.

Seri said the contest was important as transvestites have contributed a lot to the economy of Pattaya, known to many as Thailand's premier sex and sun resort.

"Many people in Thailand are well aware that the transvestite cabaret shows are very important to the economy of Pattaya, so what we are doing here gets a lot of attention from other people," Seri told Reuters.

About 1,000 tickets costing 500 baht ($1=37.5 baht) each were sold out a week before the contest, and the Tiffany Theatre's 680 seats were quickly filled -- forcing many fans to stand and watch.

More than half of the tourists who come to Pattaya will go to a cabaret show, Seri said.



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