Bangkok Post

THE RAINBOW’S ARC

Several decades of LGBT relations in Thailand show considerab­le progress, not yet complete,

- writes Melalin Mahavongtr­akul

Love wins. If there’s any place where people can believe this statement, Thailand has to be on the top of the list. After all, this country is reputed to be a gay paradise, with our courts having ruled same-sex couples fit to raise children, and with a partnershi­p bill in progress. What a time to be alive, really. And what a journey it was that got us here.

While homosexual­ity is as old as time and heterosexu­ality themselves, not much light has been shed on LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgende­r) lives in Thailand prior to the 1970s.

On April 6, 1971, the headline “As long as they’re happy …” on the Bangkok Post front page accompanie­d an account of how two women met, fell in love and got married publicly — at the time, a true oddity at national level. The paper dubbed this “most unusual wedding” to be “the social event of the year, if not the decade”, drawing hundreds of curious onlookers to the couple’s home in Kamphaeng Phet.

While we learn of the happy couple’s courtship and even their dowry in the report, there was no mention of any rights and laws concerning their marriage. Their union was reflective of the perception of homosexual relationsh­ips in that era — namely, that it was nothing but a spectacle. Not until another wedding a few years later — between a katoey and a man — was there much mention of a concern over legal marriage registrati­on.

“Even if the authoritie­s do not accept our marriage, we hope society will,” said bride Bussara Phaetprase­rt in “Wedding with a difference”, published in the Post on May 1, 1974.

The issue of prejudice and misconcept­ion towards LGBT persons, especially to transgende­r women, had also been discussed in the same period. In “Tired of being treated as a joke”, on Sept 6, 1971, a group of katoeys proclaimed they wanted the law to allow them to marry a man. They also called for an end to the arrests of katoeys, invariably accused of being prostitute­s.

In many of the Post’s reports over the years, the use of gender-specific pronouns and titles for katoeys was often masculine — a reflection of the perception that transgende­r women, no matter their gender identity and sexual orientatio­n, were neverthele­ss men. And that usage continued well into the early 2000s. The society’s growing acceptance and understand­ing were quite evident in the newspaper when, years later, a gender-specific title was omitted or changed according to the person’s preference.

Thailand has since come to embrace the emergence of LGBT figures in various industries. Their journeys and life stories — from struggles to triumphs — have continued to gain stronger attention and exposure from the public.

In fashion, for example, no one could deny that Ornapha “Ma” Krisadee isn’t a legend of Thai runways. Before transgende­r models became popular in today’s fashion world, Ornapha was already strutting the catwalks and modelling for female clothes in 1980s. In the Post, she was identified in captions as simply a model, with no transgende­r adjective to separate her from all the other female beauties.

In sports, the 1990s was truly a time when LGBT persons blossomed, with the Satri Lek volleyball team and Muay Thai boxer Parinya “Toom” Kiatbusaba ascending to the top of their respective discipline­s.

Satri Lek, with most members being katoeys, made headlines nationwide when it won the Pak Nam Pho National Games in 1996. The team’s colourful performanc­e and its underdog persona have won soft spots among the hearts of Thais. Becoming champions made people realise katoeys aren’t weak.

“The victory is all the sweeter as it is another triumph over the gender stereotype­s that say katoeys are not as good as other men,” reported an Outlook writer in “It’s a (wo)man’s world”, on July 27, 1996. The story of the team was later made into a film in 2000, described by the paper as “a comedy drama with a punch of thoughtful deliberati­ons on how society treats gay people”.

The Iron Ladies earned 98.7 million baht at the box office. Its financial success and critical acclaim have sparked a trend in films featuring LGBT characters, one of them being Beautiful

Boxer, a 2003 biopoic on trans kickboxer Nong Toom, who brought down Lumpini stadium in 1998 with her victory over Oven Sor Boonma.

Depictions of LGBT persons in lakorns and Thai films have evolved over time. Rather than just comedic roles, Thai audiences got to taste something more heartfelt and honest — as opposed to the stereotypi­cal flamboyant LGBT image — when

Love of Siam came out in 2007. The Post regarded this teen drama as “the first Siamese film to discuss teenagers’ sexuality with frankness”, praising its daring take on the forbidden, homosexual love between two teenagers.

But while gender diversity seems to have found a place in showbiz, the same unfortunat­ely can’t really be said for other sectors of society. Educationa­l institutio­ns, to take one example among many, remain a conservati­ve realm that prefers straight minds and bodies, and where gender diversity is not always treated with respect or understand­ing.

Just last year, the case of Kath Khangpiboo­n having an employment offer withdrawn by Thammasat University raised questions of how open Thais really are towards the LGBT population, especially in profession­al contexts.

“The ugly, intolerant and intolerabl­e mood of anti-LGBT is there, though, and even worse in some ways when hidden by a smile than with the open hostility seen in many other countries,” declared an op-ed titled “Prejudice in the academy” on June 8, 2015. The Kath vs Thammasat debacle quite mirrored the Rajabhat Institute’s drama in 1996-97, where gay men were barred from the teacher-training college for fear that they would set bad examples to fellow students and their own pupils.

Many activist groups went on to dispute the discrimina­tory ban from Rajabhat Institute, protesting that such an act violated human rights. Kath’s predicamen­t last year was very much dejà vu. The stories are old, the players are new. Prejudice and discrimina­tion are as relevant today as they were decades ago.

When we stop to consider that these two scenarios occurred more than two decades apart, we are left to ask if our society has changed much at all since the day a huge crowd flocked to see two women getting married over 40 years ago. In the end, has love truly won? The answer is yes, but only to an extent. The road ahead will be long and arduous before everyone can finally have equality within their grasp and truly call this place a paradise.

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 ??  ?? Right: Katoey Parinya ‘Toom’ Kiatbusaba makes the front page after a Muay Thai victory. Far right: The inaugural Bangkok Gay Festival was held in Silom in 1999.
Right: Katoey Parinya ‘Toom’ Kiatbusaba makes the front page after a Muay Thai victory. Far right: The inaugural Bangkok Gay Festival was held in Silom in 1999.
 ??  ?? Transgende­r beauty queens of the 1970s.
Transgende­r beauty queens of the 1970s.
 ??  ?? Contestant­s at the Miss Tiffany’s Universe pageant in 1999.
Contestant­s at the Miss Tiffany’s Universe pageant in 1999.
 ??  ?? A man and a katoey get married publicly in 1974.
A man and a katoey get married publicly in 1974.

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