THE RAINBOW’S ARC
Several decades of LGBT relations in Thailand show considerable progress, not yet complete,
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.