Mal Chorn (left) and Srun Srorn (right) with the picture of Mal Chorn as a young woman. Supplied

Tabitha Payne

Tabitha Payne visits a village in Prey Veng Province which is home to aging trans couples.

"Angkrong, a village in Prey Veng Province in Cambodia’s southeast corner, has been home to five couples over the age of 40, two young couples who recently emigrated, another middle-aged couple where one of the partners, a transgender man, passed away just last year, and a transgender monk. All are pairings of transgender men and cisgender women (“cisgender” meaning non-transgender). "

"The older couples, who have raised adopted children and maintained respectable, stable livelihoods here, have gained community respect over time. This is remarkable in a nation where stereotypes cast LGBT people as lazy, promiscuous, and unreliable, and where most LGBT people are young and live in urban areas."

"Pen Noul, 53, for instance, describes having known the trans man and his partner a couple houses down the street – Khiev Siam, 63, and Ouk Lay, 73, who have been together since 1982 – ever since she was young. Ouk is Pen’s second cousin. When Pen started living with her trans partner, Chhun Nhoeng, 52, in 1990, she already knew that couples like this can and do exist."

"For the first time, Mal, 74, shared a photograph of herself when she was a young dancer, actress, and singer in the late 1950s, living as a transgender woman in Kampong Cham province."

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