Not all Thai Ladyboys are Prostitutes (but many are)

That not all Thai ladyboys are prostitutes was a recent post on Opal's Blog, she herself a ladyboy from Thailand.
She insists that while tourists might meet ladyboys mainly in the hospitality scene, many of them are actually working in day to day jobs like any other average person.

From Opal:

I can not understand why so many people think just because I am a ladyboy I must be a prostitute. And this perception is not limited only to foreigners. Also Thai people think that way sometimes. For example:
I had to work late during the last weeks so if I wanted to go out I could not leave my room before 10 or 11 p.m. People on the street saw me a couple of times going out late and I could her them talk about me: "She`s a hooker, right."
This made me feel very sad, as of course I never ever worked in that business. Instead I am a very hard working girl working in a common job like millions of other Thai people.
Also, when I go to a tourist place and just sit down with my friends, I will sometimes be asked by a foreigner how I earn my money. But in a different why than one would usually ask someone for his vocation. I can hear these sounds in between very well.

Still, it is a fact that there must be a higher percentage of ladyboys working in the nightlife industry; the whole process of changing your gender is expensive and as such unaffordable for a very large percentage of the Thai population. Also, as ladyboys tend to gravitate to each other for support, contact to the milieu with it's "easy" ways of making money will be unavoidable -- and, at least here on Phuket, Ladyboys are in very high demand.