Blood, Sweat, and Tears: Identity Construction of the Transgender in Keeratee Chana's Thang Sai Thee Sam

Abstract

     This research aims at studying identity construction of the transgender in Keeratee Chana's Thang Sai Thee Sam (The Third Pathway). It is found that transgender identity is constructed through several devices: the narratives about social violence against the transgender and their identity development, the exploitation of medical and religious discourses to contest with mainstream discourse which stigmatizes transgenderism as a disease. Furthermore, the author exercises the politics of representation to reconstruct transgenderism through literary devices. In the novel, characterization and plotting shaped in opposition to convention of mainstream and malestream literature. The text affirms that the chosen "third pathway" of the transgender can sharply demythologize heterosexual normativity, gender-oriented society, and patriarchal hegemony.