Exclusive Interview with the rising star, Syuhaida. A transsexual sex worker who inspires to provide the platform for LGBT community to invest their passion on stage.
Some know her as Syuhaida or Che Tah SG, but everyone knows that she is Singapore’s Celebrity Vlogger. Not only her live feed in Facebook attracts hundreds of viewers, she is also the ambassador for the fragrance by Freda D and other few beauty products.
She has hosted and emceed her own show at Mana-Mana Club Entertainment.
Recently, she organised and hosted a beauty pageant title ‘Miss International Queen Singapore 2016’ for the transgender woman. The pageant received an overwhelming response in participation and also audience and supporter. She aims to continue this journey and in future provide a platform or pageant for the other LGBT community such as ‘Manhunt’ for transgender man.
Not a newbie in the entertainment and media industry, without hesitation and shyness, Syuhaida has kindly agreed to share more on her experience building up her career as a host/emcee in events and her own show.
How did it start? And how did you build up your career in the entertainment industry and become a social media figure?
It was actually an overnight fame, after a failure of my love – broke up with my partner. I start doing live videos which are to entertain my friends and to communicate with my friends on live videos. From there it got viral and a lot of viewers started following me. They find me funny, they find me humorous and from there I got an invitation from certain people which recommend me to Freda D.
On Ramadhan itself, I start promoting for them and when I did, business started doing well so from there I start building up ambassadors and endorsing the fragrance. I also own my own perfume called BLESS. For emcee hosting, I do it with Mana Mana entertainment which I have travelled to Vietnam to do hosting, even to Malacca and in future in Kuala Lumpur.
What are the challenges you faced? And how do you overcome it?
The challenges I face is that I was hacked on my Facebook account for 9 times and I have 18 fake profiles (at that point in time) and I was very disappointed. At that point of time, I didn’t know what to do. I nearly want to give up being a vlogger, but a lot of my friends told me do not stop and they keep buying whatever things that I endorse.
I will tell them whenever and wherever I am at and they will come down to support me. So wherever I go now, I’m being recognized and it is so nice to see they want to take a picture with me and that made me happy.
Does being a sex worker affect your current status? How do you juggle between both?
No actually, I always be honest with them and some of my fans even come to where I work, they even pass me some food, coke, especially coke, as they know I love coke. They come to my workplace just to take a picture with me, they are totally aware of what I’m working as, apart from being a social media vlogger. When I have an event, if it’s a big event, I will not work in the day, instead, I will prepare the costume and everything else. Even though there are obstacles in life, when on stage I will not show it to them, I have to be professional.
What inspire you to be a social media figure? How would you aspire others to be empowered like yourself?
Like I told you it’s an overnight fame. I didn’t want to be a social media figure but then when it happened, it cannot stop anyway because once I say I want to give up–and there was once I was already at the edge about to just give up, everybody came up to me and tell me not to stop. Because I even inspired a lady who can’t walk for 4 months, and when she keep on watching my video, where I talked about my motorbike accident and falling out of love and dropping down and standing back again, today she can walk again.
I didn’t have that intention of being one, my videos is actually very funny and stupid sometimes, but I didn’t know that out of the stupidity and funny stuff that I do actually inspire them. Maybe during being humorous in the video, my words became an inspiration for them.
What would be the greatest achievement being a social media figure?
The greatest achievement was that I was invited to Vietnam and Kuala Lumpur, and I’m now having my own perfume where I’m the first transgender (in the community) which owns a perfume brand on my own name and which is selling like a hotcake.
What is your goals and dream in 5 or 10 years’ time?
I want to tell people that we transgender are talented. After many years, I now realise that I hidden talent in doing a show and also host an event In 10 years or 5 years’ time, I want to expand my talent’s capability. Now I’m still learning the process of doing it better and better and better, to be the best? Not yet but to be better every time.
So recently you hosted the pageant for transgender, how did it start?
I was the organizer, it was a random conversation between me and a fan, then I propose to the management and the management say that ok we try. I wasn’t expecting the overwhelming support from everyone, the LGBT community. Being an organizer is already a tough job and at the point of time my dad was in the process of going for a leg operation and I was doing a hosting also. I had a hard time on stage. My friends are competing, when your friend are competing and you are the host, a lot of negative vibes is going to come out later which is true, after the event there is a lot of negative vibe and unhappiness, but, I believe everybody should put aside the negative vibe, take positivity in and all will be good.
Would you organize another event in the future?
Yes, yes, of course, thanks to Project X, and thanks to all the media who came down that night who want to cover because that was the first event ever in any transgender beauty contest which has a lot of subsidiary award. We have over than 25 subsidiary award, the first ever pageant.
Would you share more background of the transgender woman, as they are always portrayed as sex worker.
I am a sex worker, I agree with it because I live and I earn from where I am working as a sex worker. I will never forget my root. But after being a social media blogger, I would do my best I would like people to know that transgender is not only working as a sex worker, there is some more transgender who are working in the normal job, but the thing is that transgender woman is a human being, still a human being. What I want is not acceptance, but respect. Just respect. If you see a transgender which is not looking so good, do not laugh at them, just move away. You want to talk, talk behind them. Do not give them negative remark. Or laugh at them. If you look at a transgender woman and she is beautiful, you want to comment, compliment also do it behind. What I do now, I learn, whenever I walk around the street I will always smile, because my smile will kill their negative vibes, when you smile at someone when at first they got a negative thoughts about you,they want talk about you, when you smile at them, all the negative thoughts about what you talk about you, they will forget about it.
Do you find a struggle to keep up with your position, comparing previously and now.
It was from before, I always kill people with my smile. But now it’s a struggle, more struggle, because, everywhere I go I have to, not say being a hypocrite, but at least they know what kind of person I am. I talk loud, I laugh wherever I am. But when I meet them, if I meet someone with hijab and I’m wearing indecently I would say sorry, I apologize to them but if they still insist taking picture with me I will try to cover up a bit and then only take picture with them, because if they can, they are willing to give, to spend a little one minute to take a picture with me at least is a good respect already. So I don’t need acceptance but I want every human being to respect all the LGBT community, be it good or bad, just respect them. We need respect. To earn the respect is very hard but then we have to give respect to each other.
After organizing the pageant, what is your next bigger plan or next that involve the transgender woman and/or LGBT?
The next plan is that we are gonna have a lot more pageants which we are not going to be at the club itself but we are going to do maybe in ballroom, maybe in a bigger places because of the overwhelming support that night we will do in a bigger place for everybody to comfortably watch the event. So maybe we might have 2 faces competition for the gays, for now, transgender has got their chance, now we are giving chances to the gays, or maybe give chances to lesbian or the butch to present himself as manhunt. We are all this creative, we are transgender woman, we have lots a lot in mind. We are still planning, so next maybe we will plan for the seniors because days by days they are leaving us from the world. Before they leave us, let them feel the passion. Transgender woman’s passion is actually to be in a pageant, they want to flaunt their beauty, that is the main purpose of transgender. We want to be beautiful, we want to flaunt it, when you have it, you have the confidence flaunt it out. So I want to raise my voice as I am the platform for them.
Any last message?
Thanks to Project X for the coverage. Thank you so much Sherry, thank you to your crew thank you so much and I feel happy and it’s a successful event and definitely I will like to say this “I am, I will prove to everybody that I will be the platform for LGBT to invest their whatever passion they have on stage.”
If you would like to get updates on Syuhaida’s show and event she is hosting, you can connect to her via her Facebook or Instagram account. I hope everyone enjoys reading the interview as much as I enjoyed writing it. Till the next show organized or host by Syuhaida, stay tuned for more other interesting articles.
