Where are the ladyboys in Manila, Philippines?

There are a lot of Filipina ladyboys but people might not know it from first glance. Like a lot of Asian countries the same word is used for both trasgendered women and gay guys. In the Philippines that term is bakla.

There aren’t as many ladyboy in the Philippines are there are in Thailand. Well maybe there are. I haven’t done any extensive research or demographic work. But at least ladyboys aren’t as common to see in everyday life and there aren’t many ladyboy bars either.

As with any place a lot of ladyboys end up working in the sex industry. In Manila a lot them end up looking for customers online. Many still roam the streets looking for customers too. In fact that’s probably the most common place that foreigners find them though certainly a lot more people are looking on ladyboy websites.

The most popular place for horny Western guys to hang out in Manila is probably P. Burgos Street in Makati. This little street is home to a lot of go go bars and other things that foreigners might want such as Western restaurants. The bars and restaurants tend to be on the more expensive side just like everything else in Makati but there are some budget options around.

Mixed Nuts is the only ladyboy bar on P. Burgos. It is probably one of the only in the country. But the ladyboys aren’t limited to that place at all. Many more are standing outside and working the streets under the guise of giving massages.

As anyone who has walked down P. Burgos in the evening or night will know the street is absolutely filled with women offering massages. Many of them where official looking scrubs and even wear identification cards around their necks. Others dress in their regular street clothes. Some try to push customers to have massages in their nearby shops but nearly all are also up for working in customers hotel rooms, especially if those rooms are nearby. Massage women can be seen going in and out of the Oxford Suites Hotel all night every night.

Along with the dozens and maybe even hundreds of massage ladies on the street every night there are a large number of ladyboys doing the same thing. Some work alone or in groups of ladyboys but more simply try to blend in and hang around with their genetic lady friends. With Filipina ladyboys tending to be more natural they don’t always stick out as obviously as their well off big breasted counterparts in famous Thai establishments. Some guys may actually be fooled.

The ladyboys probably make up somewhere between ten and fifteen percent of the total massage workers. Some nights they seem to be more prevalent than others. While they hang out all over the strip they are most commonly seen in front of the 7-Eleven convenience store near the Royal Bollagio Hotel and a little further up the street in front of the Plan B go go bar.

Both the genetic women and the ladyboy masseuses usually offer a lot more than massages when they get into private rooms. In fact most of them can’t manage much of a massage at all. When they do give a massage at all it tends to be a ten second light rub of the legs or back. Of course there must be exceptions. Surely there are some legitimate masseuses who would never do anything sexual in the mix. There’s no way to paint such a large crowd with a broad brush and still be accurate.

The women who do offer sexual services usually aren’t shy about saying so even if they wouldn’t like to have frank and open discussions in the street. The average rate for a massage session with either a ladyboy or real woman is 500 Pesos ($10 USD). The ladies and ladyboys usually ask for a tip above that amount to perform any other special services though sometimes they include it all together. An average tip given by customers ranges between 500 and 1000 Pesos. With regular women this normally includes full service. With ladyboys it includes the same thing either way or both ways. As mentioned most of the ladyboys around are unenhanced and when naked tend to look more like femboys than ladies. So they are mostly full functional and find it very easy to get hard. In addition most are versatile and with only a few exceptions.

There are some claims that the massage women on the street are dangerous. The local diner even has a big poster hanging in the bathroom warning against these women. I have never heard of any major problems with these women though I guess it is totally possible. There’s a risk in bringing strangers to a hotel room. With people from bars there is at least some place for customers to go to report problems. With people from the street there is no where to go. The people can simply disappear from view with the customer never able to find them again. That’s how it goes I guess.

A group of Filipina ladyboys who could at least appear to be a little more “high class” than the street massage workers can be found hanging around the outside seating area in Greenbelt 3. This is a kind of mall not far from P. Burgos that has a number of restaurants and bars inside. They stay open late into the night and a mix of regular customers, horny guys and freelance women and ladyboys can be found sitting outside of the Starbucks, Seattle’s Best and Havana Cafe until midnight.

Here too the ladyboys tend to try to blend in with the “regular” ladies though they can be more obvious. For some reason taller and better dressed and more done up ladyboys hang around at Greenbelt 3 with some even having fake plastic tits. The ladyboys at Greenbelt 3 typically ask for more than the street massage ladyboys at least to start. Quotes of 3000 or even 4000 Pesos are not out of the question even though most will ultimately settle for 1000 or 2000 Pesos.

There are some ladyboys walking other streets in Manila but they are few and far between. There aren’t any large concentrations that I know about or at least that would be worth covering in a post like this.