What is it with Thailand and ladyboys? Is there an excess of pesticides in the water or something? I mean, obviously some fraction of the population are going to be transgender just by the nature of the genetic lottery, but why does Thailand seem to have an excess of men-who-are-women (but not vice versa)?
AFAIK Thailand doesnāt allow women in the regular army. So all those ladyboys are going to billeted with the men. Not sure how thatās going to work out.
The ladyboys Iāve met have all been scrappy as hell. I have no doubt theyād be able to distinguish themselves in battle, whether in a Bangkok back alley or on the front lines.
Maybe so. I was just thinking it might cause a bit of embarrassment for the regular lads at shower time.
The (few) ladyboys Iāve met have been as feminine as, well, women. Possibly theyāre not the sort who volunteer for service in the armed forces, though.
Slightly OT: Iāve heard that well-trained female soldiers are very efficient killers. I object to female soldiers for precisely that reason: a (male) enemy in a kill-or-be-killed situation is a dead man, because most men will instinctively recoil from killing a woman. Deeply dishonorable, IMO, to deploy women on the front line. If the ladyboys want to enrol, and they find themselves in a combat situation, I hope theyāll be kitted out as men.
Maybe you were running with a better class of ladyboy. 
But seriously, femininity and toughness arenāt mutually exclusive. I saw a ladyboy take down a much better built farang in Pattaya without even breaking a nail. And a cat fight between two ladyboys is something to behold.
Clearly they should have ladyboy regiments. Then no country would dare invade Thailandā¦ unless it had its own similar regiments. 
And Finley, since when is āhonorā so important in a free market? 
yyy: honor is the one thing, the only thing, that keeps free markets working, and by extension keeps civilization from descending to the ninth circle of Hell. Itās all weāve got. Iām in the twilight zone (aka The Philippines) at the moment, dealing with that fundamental reality right now. In societies without honor, humans are reduced to their most bestial essence.
So you like the social contract ā or law 
ā that you call honor, okay. But as our resident Uber friend would say, people should be free to choose whether or not to be bound by that law!
Sorry, I just couldnāt resist.
Law is merely the social contract, codified; honor continues to function in the absence of Law (eg., on the battlefield). When lawyers create laws that people do not grok, those laws fail. Successful laws are formal descriptions of things that people already agree on. This is the philosophical underpinning of ācommon lawā.
I never said that people should be free to choose whether to be bound by statute. I was suggesting that, if the Law makes any pretense at fairness, it should not construct statutes that forbid or constrain things that are congruent with objectively positive and widely-accepted social values.
In the case of Uber, ideas about sharing and win-win solutions are fundamental concepts in all successful societies, including Taiwan. Making those things illegal is a retrogressive step, pushing social consensus towards a lose-lose paradigm. But yeah, completely OT.
honor continues to function in the absence of Law (eg., on the battlefield)
When the ladyboy army comes for you, I trust you will do the honorable thingā¦ whatever that is. 
Iām not sure thatās true (the vice-versa part). Itās not uncommon.
Same reason why some armies used the (disgusting) tactic to deploy kids to battlefieldā¦
Exactly.
These tactics are understandable, I suppose, when you have a small village army defending itself against possible annihilation. However, that isnāt how (most) modern wars are fought.
But is it merely background-level uncommon, as in the rest of the world, or is it as prevalent as the ladyboy phenomenon?
Donāt ask donāt tell policy?
The situation seems correspondingly open and prevalent there to me. I think itās become more of a visible thing in recent years, much like here. Thailand seems to be more open to different gender expressions in general, but Iād guess the reason āladyboysā are so noticeable is the prevalence of the sex industry and their niche in it.
Drafting trans-women highlights the ridiculousness of forcing someone into the army for no other reason that biological sex. How about this: no more military service. For anyone, under any circumstance. If you want to die for king and country, then go ahead - donāt force others though.
This has been going on for years.
They are actually classed as having a mental disorder. Some may agree to that and some may not. The excellent Blair White sees it as a mental disorder:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUOjuiAikrU
I know a few ladyboys from Thailand and non of them call themselves female or male for that matter, but ladyboys.
Regarding the females that look like males which you also see in Taiwan. I think some of them are similar to ladyboys rather than ālesbiansā.
25 years ago I might have agreed with you. However conscripting people for military training is not remotely similar to conscripting them to fight a war. Itās not a bad thing to have lots of people (men) trained well enough to repel an invader at short notice. Historically, such things happen far too often. If they donāt happen - well, no worries, a bunch of lads got to shoot at things, blow shit up, and play with big machines.
But yeah, I can see this particular situation just causing problems.
You can class anything you like as a mental disorder, and what is or is not a disorder is determined by weird old academics divining this weekās zeitgeist. DSM-5, for example, is radically different to DSM-4. Why? Has the landscape of mental illness changed? Of course it bloody hasnāt. But fashions have.
If Iām on the street in Thailand or maybe anywhere in the world and I need someone to fight for or with me, Iāll gladly have a ladyboy fight for and with me. Ladyboys fight to kill.
Why should we force person A to undergo lessons in how to kill and person B is free to chose not to - solely because of different biological sex? There is no single reason that does not rely on construed gender roles. And what if Taiwanese men do not even want to repel any invader?