Know your audience. This cardinal rule of both HIV prevention interventions and social media strategies has been a key to the early success of TLBz Sexperts, a growing HIV prevention program based in Chiang Mai, Thailand. TLBz Sexperts is using social media—including Facebook, You Tube, and online chats—to reach transgender people—a population that is at-risk for HIV infection—with important health messages. In this podcast, you will hear from Nada Chaiyajit, a well-known transgender activist from Chiang Mai, who leads the TLBz Sexpert program. www.aidstar-one.com/focus_areas/prevention/resources/msm_transgender_podcast

1. Transcript of Podcast:
Reaching Transgender and MSM Populations through Social Media
This podcast was produced by the AIDS Support and Technical Assistance Resources (AIDSTAR-One) project,
USAID Contract #GHH-I-00-07-00059—00, funded January 31, 2008.
TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 12:18
CONTACT: info@aidstar-one.com
0:00 - Narrator
You are listening to an AIDSTAR-One podcast. Today we will explore how a program in Thailand, TLBz
Sexperts, is using internet to reach most-at-risk populations, including transgender people, with health
messages. We will be hearing from Nada Chaiyajit, a well-known transgender activist from Chiang-Mai, who
leads the TLBz Sexpert program.
In July 2010 PEPFAR issued Technical Guidance on Combination HIV Prevention. The guidance defines six
core components, including Targeted Information, Education and Communication. This broad component
includes a wide range of HIV prevention activities such as community, small-group, and individual
behavioral interventions, peer education, and the development and distribution of targeted media that are
used as part of outreach efforts, HIV testing and counseling, behavioral interventions, and social marketing
campaigns.
Dr. Christopher Walsh from The Open University and the MPlus Foundation in Thailand were looking for an
engaging way to reach at risk groups to change the way the communities talk about sexual behavior and
HIV risk. At that time—three years ago—YouTube was already very popular, and transgender people and
MSM were excited about using these new tools and other mobile devices, like iPhones and iPods. High-risk
groups were using these tools to share sexual video clips. Here’s how Nada Chaiyajit explains the program’s
decision to employ social media tools.
1:24 - Nada
Nada’s voice: “so we decided to make an animation, because that moment three year ago, You Tube is very
famous, and almost every transgender and MSM member in our community was excited with these
technologies, mobile phones, mobile device, ipod, iphone. So we know that they always share the clips,
some kind of sexual clip, something like that. So we think that if we produce the animation that can keep the
knowledge about prevention programs, so it could be the two that open up their mind and talk with our
peer outreach, so we produce the animation first. And then we put it on the website on online resources for
the first period”.

2. 2:14 - Narrator
However, the team was also concerned about getting these animations and the relevant information to the
hard-to-reach populations: MSM who were not attending outreach sessions but instead were arranging
hook-ups from their computers at home and transgender people who only wanted to engage with their
inner, trusted circle, not random outreach workers.
2:34 - Nada
Nada’s voice: But think about the people who just sit in front of the computer and just go online talking.
They are almost lacking this information because they are just hook [up] and go, get and go, no time for
speaking. Just get my guys already and go.”
2: 50 - Narrator
So, the team wrote a grant to get funding from amFAR to run a program called Sexperts, which was based
on the RFSL Stockholm program, “We are the Sexperts!” The team adapted this program for the Chiang Mai
context (which differs from the Bangkok context as well) and trained people—including Nada—to become
MPlus sexperts.
After just one year of the grant, the sexperts had completed over 1000 chats with different at-risk groups,
but through careful evaluation of their program, they discovered that they had only been reaching the
MSM population, not the transgender population that does not always identify as MSM. In many cases, HIV
programming combines health message for transgender people with those for men who have sex with men
without taking into consideration the particular needs of transgender people. Programming for transgender
people need to be adopted to meet their specific needs, which are different from those of MSM.
3: 44 - Nada
Nada’s voice: “the transgendered, they don’t feel that they are male at all, and they feel not very okay with
any kind of male word to address themselves… use just their own experience and transfer it from generation
to generation to generation, so lots of myth and misunderstanding about sexual health issues go around like
a circle, like a loop. So this cause very high incidence/rates of HIV and any kind of sexual health problem... I
know what is going on, that is why the sexpert still must keep working hard to reach our transgender
members in our community. It looks like we are not just into our sexual health and prevention program, but
it is because transgender is different from MSM or gay.
4:39 - Narrator
Realizing that they needed a special program specifically designed for transgender people, when the MPlus
grant ended, the team decided to apply their new Sexpert experience and adapt the MPlus program
specifically for the transgender context. In September 2011, with support from BABSEA Foundation and CLE
Foundation, Nada and Dr. Chris Walsh created TLBz Sexperts. TLBz stands for Thai Lady Boys and is the first
virtual community in Thailand designed to improve the quality of life and self-esteem of transgender people
online. The program has a website, TLBz.me, a Facebook page, and a Hotmail address, where people can
email the sexperts directly.

3. 5: 21 - Nada
Nada’s voice: “After the m plus sexpert program end, because the grants end also, we don’t want to just
stop the very charming and sexy program to the new approach to HIV prevention to our community. With
all the m plus sexpert we quite successful”.
Nada’s voice: We create [www.TLBz.me] through the Facebook, through TLBz Sexperts, through MS and
instant messaging [TLBzsexpertaddress@hotmail.com]. We use the web board as a source like […] to
approach the interesting information like sexual health knowledge, the knowledge about basic human
rights, what are the transgender rights under the Thai Constitution, or internationally, what’s the movement
now, something like this. We link into the facebook, TLBxsexpert facebook, to keep posts of advertisement
of now we are online.
6:39 - Narrator
TLBz Sexperts is meant to provide a space where transgender people can talk about issues of interest to
transgender people, which include hormone use, beauty, boyfriends, sex, dealing with gender
transformation and related stigma. Through these conversations, the sexperts can provide information
about safe sex, HIV and STI prevention, human rights and provide reference for legal consultations.
7:03 - Nada
Nada’s voice: “We have university-based legal clinics nation-wide, we just find out where you are, so we try
to refer them to the legal clinic, or if the case quite serious, we know exactly who we can contact at the
national human rights commission. So then we just refer to them, and I myself will come up as an activist I
can support them too.
7:31 - Narrator
Because this program utilizes existing technology, cost implications are very minimal.
7:38 - Nada
Nada’s voice: “We pay just total $5000. About $170 US dollars for our peer each month, that includes
internet fee. This kind of volunteering program, and what we are looking at is to train the new peer, the
person who feel that they get the benefits from the TLBz sexpert. We try to empower them, but the big thing
if you can be a part of the great program, to serve your life and to improve the better life of your friends and
the community. We helping each other because no one can help us”.
8: 24 - Narrator
These programs are young; they are only at the implementation stage. It is not clear yet whether people
are using the HIV information they get from TLBz Sexperts and MPlus chats to increase their condom use or
decrease risky behaviors. Getting people to USE those resources requires targeted dissemination to spaces
where the population of interest is already engaging, so information about TLBz Sexperts chats are posted
on relevant Facebook groups. Nada and her team are also actively reaching out in other spaces where
people seek information to make sure that the transgender population knows about Sexperts.

4. 9:00 - Nada
Nada’s voice: “: The best part is we know exactly what we are. Before you take any kind of intervention or
implementation program, sit back to learn about yourself first. I myself, on behalf of TLBz sexpert is quite
successful and famous because it’s starting from questioning myself who we are. Then go through this way,
figure out, try to identify yourself, your community clearly, and then you know what kind of intervention or
implementation program in HIV prevention you can take to use it through the online world, through the
cyber world”.
9:40 - Narrator
A successful use of social media allowed this program to better access the hard-to-reach population of
transgender people in Thailand. And Nada and her team did exactly that. They used the social media to
identify their target audience and their needs. With the help of technology, TLBz Sexperts reached
transgender populations in online spaces. By investing time to learn about the needs of this target
audience, the program weaved HIV prevention information into discussions of everyday topics that are
important to transgender people in Thailand.
10:11 – Nada
Nada’s voice: “This space is really a self-space for them to talk, to talk about anything they want to talk
about on transgender issues. It looks like we are not just into our sexual health and prevention program, but
it is because transgender is different from MSM or gay, okay. We do it together like a powwow, why we try
to empower them to build up their self-esteem through the… to make them love their body, so we add
information about sexual health prevention to get it all the time. Like yes, you look gorgeous now, you reach
the goal, you have whatever you need to be a good transgender woman, but you should maintain it by live
healthy. So what kind of health issues: one of the big parts of sexual life because we know that you want to
look beauty because you want to get a good guy. So then how to get a good guy and have a healthy life so
HIV prevention is a big part of youth concerns. So we provide creative counseling”.
11:24 - Narrator
This approach can be duplicated by programs around the world to promote positive sexuality and public
health messages to most-at-risk communities. Nada and her team used the advantage of social media tools
available to them, learned about what was important to their target audience and delivered relevant HIV
prevention messages. In other words, know your epidemic, know your response, and get the information
out in innovative and effective modes of communication.
This podcast has been brought to you by AIDSTAR-One. AIDSTAR-One provides technical assistance and
program implementation support to USAID Missions and Bureaus, as well as global technical leadership
activities on behalf of the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief's (PEPFAR) Technical Working
Groups. AIDSTAR-One is funded by PEPFAR through USAID. Visit AIDSTAR-One.com for more information on
this and other HIV technical topics.