Kathoey culture in Thailand

As you probably already know, Thailand is specific its culture being very opened and tolerant to transsexualism. Transsexuals, ladyboys or how they call them in Thailand - kathoeys, are basically accepted as a third gender. And Thailand is known all over the world because of that and it is even known as a destination for sexual tourism (which is not that good though, given the all bad things that sexual tourism includes). I don't have any connections to Thailand though. I was born in Hong Kong and I moved to California with my parents when I was a teen. But as I said, Thai kathoey culture played a huge role in my transition, idolizing those cute Thai ladyboys helped me accept my own sexuality.