As the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) celebrated its golden jubilee in 2017, more and more people have become aware of both the organization and the Southeast Asian region. The 31st ASEAN Summit held in Manila in November 2017, brought together not only leaders of the ASEAN member states but also leaders of ASEAN’s dialogue partners such as Donald Trump, Justin Trudeau, Narendra Modi, Shinzō Abe, and António Guterres. In addition, the 2017 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit and the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) Ministerial Meeting were held in Da Nang, Viet Nam and Yangon, Myanmar respectively, thus putting Southeast Asia under the spotlight in November of that year. This paper seeks to explain the history of the term “Southeast Asia,” the nature of regional cooperation, and how a sense of regional belonging evolved over the years.

This paper examines the perceived barriers to general and sexual health care services and hormone use among 70 transgender women in five cities of Vietnam. Findings showed a range of barriers to health care access among transgender women, including stigma and discrimination at medical settings, limited use of health insurance, increased risk of HIV infection, and problematic hormone use, notably hormone self-medication and the practice of needle sharing. Insensitivity and lack of understanding towards transgender health among health care providers also prevented transgender women from attaining proper care and treatment. Our study then suggests further research on hormone use, and calls for the integration of related content in education and communication programs, and public health interventions. The conduct of needs assessment among health care staff at both public and private settings so as to better deliver trans-focused and trans-friendly care is also recommended.

Opportunities for higher education and employment started to offer more possibilities for a large cohort of ordinary Thai women in the 1970s. Many of them, especially in the urban areas, gained greater autonomy from their families and increased control of their own lives. Interviews conducted with 23 never-married women living in Bangkok who belonged to a pioneer cohort of highly-educated women revealed both the amount of agency that these women had in their education as well as the inner conflicts they experienced. Structurally constrained in their pursuit of higher education, these women were heavily organized around work, which caused personal dilemma as they had to deal with newfound modern values and long-held notions of womanhood. These conflicts were negotiated and resolved through a sense of symbolic independence derived from work.

Maria Serena I. Diokno is Professor of History at the University of the Philippines Diliman. Professor Diokno is a co-founder of the SEASREP Foundation. Her interests span the colonial period of Southeast Asia, about which she has published. Among her publications are "Corruption and the Moral Imperative, through the Lens of Rizal" (2011), "Expeditions of Knowledge: Supporting Southeast Asian Studies in the Region" (2010), and "Southeast Asia: Imperial Possession and Dispossession in the Long Twentieth Century" (2006).

Ma. Mercedes G. Planta is Associate Professor of History at the University of the Philippines Diliman. Her research and publications are in the fields of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine (STM) and Science, Technology and Society (STS) studies in colonial Southeast Asia, particularly Spanish and American Philippines. Her current research examines the development of modern medicine in Dutch Indonesia, British Malaya, and American Philippines. She is the author of Traditional Medicine in the Colonial Philippines, 16th to the 19th Century (University of the Philippines Press 2017).

Maitrii Aung-Thwin is an area-studies specialist of Southeast Asia, with particular expertise in Myanmar history, politics, and society. His research engages conversations from the fields of postcolonial studies, socio-legal studies, intellectual history, public history, and transnational studies. His publications include: A History of Myanmar since Ancient Times: Traditions and Transformations (2013), The Return of the Galon King: History, Law, and Rebellion in Colonial Burma (2011), and A New History of Southeast Asia (2010). He is currently Associate Professor of Myanmar/Southeast Asian history and Convenor of the Comparative Asian Studies PhD Program at the National University of Singapore.

Joseph M. Fernando is Associate Professor of History at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He obtained his PhD in History from Royal Holloway College, University of London. His areas of specialization are Malaysian political and constitutional history, British imperialism in Southeast Asia, and modern history of Southeast Asia. Dr. Fernando was a Visiting Fulbright Scholar at Harvard University in 2004-2005. His publications include The Making of the Malayan Constitution (2002); The Alliance Road to Independence (2009); and "British and Commonwealth Legacies in the Framing of the Malayan Constitution, 1956-1957", Britain and the World, Vol. 8, No. 2, September 2015.

Rieyen D. Clemente is a graduate student of the Department of History, University of the Philippines Diliman. He is a member of the Pi Gamma Mu International Honor Society for Social Sciences and Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society.

Patricia Anne Y. Asuncion is a BA Comparative Literature graduate from the University of the Philippines Diliman. She is currently pursuing her second degree (BA Linguistics) in the same university.

Jeanne Therese L. Maling is a graduate student at the University of the Philippines, Diliman (UPD).

Dr. Charnvit Kasetsiri, former Rector of Thammasat University, is secretary of the Foundation for the Promotion of Social Sciences and Humanities Textbooks Project in Thailand. He holds an MA in Diplomacy from Occidental College, Los Angeles, California, and a PhD in Southeast Asian History from Cornell University. He specializes in Thai history (Ayutthaya, Thai political history, and contemporary Thai politics) and history of Southeast Asia.

Dr. Taufik Abdullah is a retired Professor of History at the Gadjah Mada University. He was Chair of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI). He also chaired the Indonesian Historical Society and was a Director of the National Institute for Economic and Social Research. He received his Doctorandus from Gadjah Mada University, and MA and PhD degrees from Cornell University. Dr. Taufik has worked on the political history of Indonesia and Islam.

Dr. Ruth McVey, Emeritus Reader in Southeast Asian Politics at the University of London, received her PhD in Government at Cornell University in 1961 and subsequently held research and teaching positions at Yale University, the Center for International Studies at MIT, Cornell University, and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Her early work concentrated on the history of the Indonesian Communist movement and the general relationship between ideology and social change in Indonesia. Later, she studied social and ideological transformation in rural southern Thailand, and the rise of the Southeast Asian business-political elite.