Following the Chinese transgender women journeying to Thailand in pursuit of life-changing surgeries
Three summers ago, a Chinese transgender woman named Puppy (a pseudonym), boarded a flight from mainland China to Bangkok. At the airport, she was greeted by a team of medical staff, who stood waiting while holding a sign with her name. Puppy was ushered to a nearby hospital, where she joined several other Chinese transgender women waiting to be processed. It was the first time she’d met any of these women in person, but she knew many of them intimately through online networks. Each had left home to come here for the same purpose: to undergo what Puppy described as a “fated” gender affirming surgery – one she’d spent the past 25 years yearning for.
