Sino-Thai Itineraries of Care

My doctoral dissertation project focuses on transnational mobility between China and Thailand and how it shapes the possibilities of transgender embodiment, especially for marginalized trans subjects in China. Due to the restrictive system of transition-related healthcare in China, the neighboring country of Thailand has emerged as a key site for Chinese transgender communities to access hormones and surgeries. In the context of the increasing China-to-Thailand traffic for care, I follow Chinese trans people’s therapeutic trajectories to Thailand as they navigate between two national models of trans care—state-regulated, paternalistic care regime in China and commodified, neoliberal care economy in Thailand—while experimenting with community-based forms of care-giving, material exchange, and knowledge production. By tracing Sino-Thai trans mobility as economy, logistics, and affect, I hope to explore how Thailand emerged as a promise for desired gender embodiment, medico-legal citizenship, and hope for better life for Chinese trans people both mobile and immobile.

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