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Parinya Charoenphol

Parinya Charoenphol

Yup, I Know. But coming up with a pun infested title isn’t always that easy.

As long as I’m posting about Thai boxing, I thought I’d include an entry about one of Thailand’s more famous kickboxing champions. His fame wasn’t so much due to his prowess in the ring, though cinching a championship title should tell you that he was quite good, but rather that he was a she. Or more correctly, she was a he. At least until he became a she.

Parinya Charoenphol, better known as Nong Toom, hit the big time in February 1998, when she won a bout at Bangkok’s Lumpini Stadium. Thailand’s media went gaga over the make-up wearing 16-year-old lady boy, who defeated and then kissed her larger and more muscular opponent. She soon became a favorite muay thai boxer embraced by the nation and promoted by tourism officials for being ‘indicative of the wonders to be found in Thailand’. Amazing Thailand indeed.

Born into a rural family living in Chiang Mai province, Nong Toom took the traditional route for children of poor parents in Thailand and became a novice monk.. At the age of 12, he visited a temple fair where a kickboxing match offered 500 baht to the winner; he entered, won, and began his career in muay thai as a financial means to support his family. Initially kickboxing was a way to earn money, but Nong Toom fell in love with the sport, attracted to the ancient movements that are as much a ritualistic dance as an act of violence. His grace and beauty coupled with the stylized dance-like movement he preferred resulted in his trademark move Crushing Medicine, which involved jumping in the air and bringing his elbow down onto the head of his unfortunate opponent.

Toom’s strength and dexterity in the ring, and the ability to knock out the toughest of fighters, won him fame and acceptance racking up 20 wins out of 22 regional matches, and finally nationwide fame after a victory in 1998 at Lumpini. As her fame spread, so did her flame; the girl inside of the boy became more and more obvious to fans and they started showing up to matches wearing makeup and outlandish colored trunks in support. “Back then, I looked like a muscular katoey, and no one believed that I could be a woman,’’ Toom recalls, laughing.

Victorious in the ring, Toom’s private life still left much to be desired. She was still a he. But that changed when a ladyboy beautician from her village supplied the eager Toom with her first bottle of hormone pills. Soon her muscles waned and her jaw line softened. So did her prize-winning punches. Toom’s fans were shocked and by the fall of 1998, there was little coverage of Nong Toom to be found in either the mainstream or boxing media.. But with the hope of becoming a full woman, Nong Toom finally went under the knife in 1999 and became a she.

Beautiful Boxer

Beautiful Boxer

Her story is told in the 2004 film Beautiful Boxer, which opened in the US in 2005. Real-life kickboxer Asanee Suwan, a 22-year-old professional featherweight kickboxer from Chiang Mai, landed the lead role in the movie that won several national and international awards, yet opened to limited success in Thailand. There was also controversy in Thailand about the full-frontal male nudity in this film. (For Thailand, the nudity was cut.) Shot in nine provinces across Thailand and in Tokyo, it is a beautifully photographed film, with lots of eye candy and great fight sequences of Toom knocking out most of his opponents in Thailand and Japan.

Since becoming a woman and retiring from the ring, Toom has worked as an actress, a model, and toured for a while with her one-woman show Boxing Cabaret. She has not been allowed to take part in a kickboxing fight because of her gender. “I do miss it, but I’m not that far away from it,” she says. “I go and see my friends in matches, and I do some training. And I still can’t walk past a punch bag without kicking it.”

“When I got a job as a performer, many katoeys believed that I wasn’t fit for it. I know my previous stage was a boxing ring, not a transgendered beauty pageant contest, and they assumed that since I used to live in a very masculine world I wouldn’t know how to sing and dance like them,” says Toom. But as she did with disbelief from the boxing world, Toom again proved the doubters wrong.

beautiful Boxers

Two Beautiful Boxers: Nong Toom and Asanee Suwan.

In 2006, Toom made a comeback as boxer, fighting an exhibition match against Japan’s Kenshiro Lookchaomaekhemthong. Nong Toom won by unanimous decision after the three-round fight. In 2008 she had a fight against Pernilla Johansson at Rumble of the Kings in Stockholm, Sweden and won by decision.

That same year, Toom’s life and her family were captured in a music video for a single by Dido, It Comes and It Goes. The video, she said, brought back a project she has long dreamed of. “The video basically tells the story of my life as a woman, as a mother, as a trainer, as I help my brother teach Thai boxing to kids. And it got me thinking that maybe I should have my own camp that offers training for needy children in the area who can have muay thai as their ‘weapon’ for the future.”

Together with her best friend and business partner, Steven Khan, she is now planning to make “Parinya Muay Thai” come true. “I have a piece of empty land that I bought when I was only 16. I earned the money from boxing and I gave it to my mother to buy it,” she says. “It’s the perfect place, not far from the beach, a nice place for kids to exercise near the sea with fresh air.”

The camp is located in Pranburi, and .is designed to allow children to live, train and eventually go to school without being under contract to fight or having the burden of financially supporting their families. At Parinya Muay Thai, Toom says, children will be taught muay thai boxing for fitness and self-defense. They’ll also be offered opportunities to pursue an education, giving them a better chance at success in the lives.

Parinya Charoenphol and her daughter Pang

Parinya Charoenphol and her daughter Pang

Toom also sees her facility as providing an outreach program for Thailand’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered youth, allowing them to live and train in a safe and open environment, and to learn to defend themselves against bullies, develop confidence, and experience self-empowerment.

Today, though Toom keeps a low profile about her adopted daughter, “Pang”, now 8, whom Toom’s parents legally adopted, she says that filling a mother’s role has opened up a whole new experience. “My only wish is to support her now and give her the love, warmth and education she needs,” says Toom.

“I swore to myself that if I could be a woman, I would be a strong woman so that I can protect those I love: my family and my daughter,” Toom says. And it’s Toom’s inner strength that continues to inspire all who come to know her.

 

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