The Bangkok Post reported that gay male students are currently allowed to attend class wearing skirts although it was probably referring to male-to-female transgender or katoey students.
Uncaptioned photos from Kapook.com via the Bangkok Post
'Tomboy' (or 'tom' in local parlance) typically refers to butch or masculine lesbians as understood in a western context.
The women complained that being forced by teachers to wear female attire to classrooms, instead of male clothing, distressed them. It also denied them their free will, and breached the constitution and the principle of gender equality, the report quoted the Thai Sunandha News website as saying.
One 'tomboy' student Kanokwan Wongsaroj said that she had been asked to leave a classroom just because she was wearing trousers.
The news has attracted debate on Facebook and other local websites with netizens expressing mixed opinions on university students cross-dressing.
SSRU professor Nantida Ohtagam was quoted by the Post as saying that the reason she does not allow 'tomboy' students to come to her class wearing pants is because "they still look like women, unlike gay students who change their hair and looks as well."
Again, she is likely to be referring to male-to-female transgender or katoey students as the understanding of the concept of 'gay' is difficult to grasp given that there is no equivalent word in Thai.
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Oxford, Macmillan, Collins, Cambridge and Merriam-Websters dictionaries roughly define "tomboy" as "a girl who acts and/or dresses like a boy".
In addition, sexuality was excluded in the definitions, meaning any girl, regardless of sexuality, can be laballed as a "tomboy".
The definition presented in this article compared with multiple dictionaries is "misaligned" (i.e. where did this definition come from?) unless Thailand has its own national English dictionary or "tomboy" was treated as slang in this context.
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