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Transgender Traveller in Bother on “Border Security&quo
Hi all,
Last night, on “Border Security” the Customs officers stopped a Malaysian transgender girl. The reason was that she was going to stay for three months, had a very vague idea of what she was going to do, had little money, and said that she was ‘celebrating her birthday’ by coming to Sydney.
Unfortunately, in her luggage, they found the drafts she’d written, for some classified ads for the sex trade-stuff about “Asian lady”, etc.With that, and the other things about her story, they decided that she was here to work as a prostitute and cancelled her visa and sent her back the next day.
I think the Customs people were right in their assessment, but it’s a shame that the general public see trans people in this light. It can only help reinforce the idea that transwomen are less than “wholesome”.
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3 Replies
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I saw that too. At least they gendered her correctly unlike the last time.
I thought the same thing too….oh great, transwoman….must be prostitute….although quite possibly she was. Not a great message.
Gwen -
some people may consider border security thinly veiled propaganda for white australia, xenophobia, and now, throw in transphobia. how many average blokes from the bondi tram are caught with prohibited food items (yes, even an apple that originated in australia but is off the plane is prohibited – and i have observed a number of average australians being bailed up for this)? also, if you see the number of people going through the quarantine area every day and note the percentage of people that get pulled aside, these scenes on border security represent a very small sample of border “breaches”. these scenes imply that they happen frequently, and that the offenders (the ones to be portrayed usually barely able to speak english) being the many ignorant foreigners that do not understand the australian way.
the networks struggle to produce quality content to fill the vast vacuum of hours that are required to sustain the projected advertising revenue they sell. watch with many grains of salt.
unfortunately, the mass consumers watch and translate what they see as the truth. an example of this is when the public see a soap opera star in real life and question them about the in character role as if they are in character. i’m sure it happens many thousand times per minute at any of the numerous disneylands and universal studio theme parks around the world, whose very existence depend upon this supposition.
to me, it would be so easy for the media to portray trans people in positive light – as employers and employees, nurses, doctors, judges, (non-evil and above corruption) politicians, and generally all round good citizens. how about as a border security agent? it’s not that hard, is it? but that’s me. maybe i am just naive and idealistic, and the world doesn’t need changing.
virginia xo
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I haven’t seen the episode in question (I rarely watch the show), but I can confirm that it is not unusual to find transgender illegal workers working as prostitutes in the sex industry – although relatively unusual in the instance of Malaysians (they are most often Thai nationals).
The Border Security episodes you see are entirely accurate in their portrayal of events – if heavily edited for time reasons (a situation that in reality unfolds over several hours is condensed into 10-15 minutes of television footage).
I agree that it is very unfortunate that the public may be left with a negative impression of the transgender community, but surely that is due to people generalizing rather than the fault of Customs and Immigration officers performing their duties?
