Queer Thai-American artist & actor Michael Shaowanasai is known for his self-portrait series where he cross-dresses while wearing easy-to-recognize uniforms required of certain jobs. One of them is Portrait of Man in Habit, where he has fashioned himself as a Buddhist monk while wearing make-up and holding a pink, girlish handkerchief.
Shaowanasai’s crossdressing self-portraits are representations of identities whose media presence has been heavily masculine, despite their femme and gender non-conforming counterparts existing in real life. By cross-dressing, Shaowanasai wishes to ask his viewers to begin to divorce their ties of certain genders with these identities and occupations in society. These pieces state that gender non-conforming people and women can really do and have achieved everything that a cis man can and has done, reflecting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of Gender Equality.
On his artist’s website, Shaowanasai, who’s both gay and a practicing Buddhist, writes that the piece’s creation began with his questions around how Buddhism views gay men. During this research he discovered that tradition calls for newly ordained Buddhists to answer a series of questions as a sort of entry test, a list of questions that includes the seemingly simple: are you human?
Yet, Shaowanasai found that the answer to this question is anything but simple. Certain Buddhist rules have stated that queers, including gay men, and women are considered less human than their cis male counterparts, which is why since 1928, Thai regulations have not allowed the ordination of female or queer monks. Despite this, Shaowanasai has managed to find that there are Thai Buddhist temples with queer monks and nuns within their ranks, even if their ordination is not recognized by the state.
With over 95 percent of its population being Buddhists, Thailand is a constitutional monarchy with strong ties to its Buddhist kingship past, something that can be felt even today in the state’s strong protection and support for Buddhism. This includes regulations like the 1928 Sangha Act, which has forbidden women and gender non-conforming people from being ordained as monks, which has been upheld for so long.
However, ordinary Thai citizens generally have a positive attitude towards queer and women monks. In 2014, when the gay monk, the Venerable Tanaisawan George Chandha-dhammo, went on a popular national television talk show to share his experiences as a gay monk, the Thai National Censorship Committee made moves to prevent the episode from airing. Only after public pressure, via the episode’s teaser getting significant traction on social media, did they manage to reinstate and air the episode.
Outside of religious affairs, the Thai government’s attitude towards queer and LGBTQ+ people has also been a largely positive one. Thailand has become the first Southeast Asian nation to formally recognize same-sex marriage, with the marriage equality bill having come into effect on January 23, 2025.
Coming back to Shaowanasai, Bangkok Post art critic Kaona Pongpipat has managed to succinctly address the value of the work:
“Instead of provoking our memories about past scandals, it instead questions our perception of monks, that maybe a good monk doesn’t have to be like how we imagine."
Pieces like Shaowanasai’s Portrait of Man in Habit help the people of Thailand strive for a more just and equal future for all, including gender non-conforming, queer, and women monks.
You can find out more about Portrait of Man in Habit and other pieces by Michael Shaowanasai by checking their website.