How Thailand’s same-sex marriage law could impact South East Asia
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Thailand has become the first country in Southeast Asia to legalise same-sex marriage. This new law means that same-sex couples will have the same rights as other couples when it comes to things like adoption, inheritance and medical decisions. And it's taken activists years of campaigning to get to this point. In September, Thailand's king finally signed it into law.

So today you're going to hear from an activist who campaigns for LGBTQ plus rights in Thailand and find out what this new law is going to mean for same-sex couples. I'm Hannah Gelbart and this is What In The World from the BBC World Service. To explain Thailand's marriage equality bill, I'm speaking to Pernisa Emosha, a BBC reporter in Bangkok. Hi, Pernisa. Hi, how are you? Good, thank you. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. So to start off with,

Tell me a bit about LGBTQ plus culture in Thailand and how mainstream it is. To say it's mainstream, it's just like everyday life, right? And one of the very popular things, for example, if one might think about LGBTQ in Thailand is probably the BL industry or the GL, the boy love and the girl love in Thailand has become very popular. If you don't know, boy love and girl love dramas are TV series featuring same-sex romances. We actually have scenes on social media platforms

a lot of foreigners actually come to Thailand because the influence of all the boy love and girl love and all the actress or the actor that they love and they move to Thailand. One of the girls, she become a TikToker. She moved from the US to Thailand because of Apo, one of the actors who play into boy love series. So this is just like in general of how popular it is. But in terms of like general life, it's,

I think we are quite accepting. Of course, there's some family or some people that still find challenging to talk to their parents or to talk to the older generations of their gender. But in general, we are accepting. And I think a lot of foreigners also see Thailand as a Pride Month destination as well. Tell me a bit about Pride. Have you been to Pride in Bangkok?

Oh yes, for sure. As a reporter and also as a friend of many gays, it's so fun and so welcoming and it's like I went to the Pride in Berlin as well and also went to the Pride in Thailand and I think we're doing a great job as well. Berlin is known for being the worldwide one, right? They have long history but I think Thailand also like catching up

and also the last prime months this year because the government see where the prize is going and they also see the potential they want to make LGBTQ or BL or GL industry into a soft power to export it or to attract

more tourists. So the events not only happened in Bangkok, the capital city, but the government also expanded to Chiang Mai, also Koh Samui or Phuket. So we've seen almost 1 million tourists visit Thailand during that period of the Pride Month and generate quite a bit of revenue for the country. It sounds like such a party. I'm going to have to come to Pride in Bangkok.

One day. But let's talk about this same-sex marriage bill, because activists have been campaigning for it for years. Why did it take Thailand so long to legalise it? Well, 23 years to be exact. But the short answer is time and place, right? It was first brought up back in 2001, but it was really heavily criticised by the public. So the public was really against it. And the government at the time was decided to, OK, we call it a quit because it's

They believed that the society was not ready for it. And now there have been fighting along the way. And when the time that the public is kind of more accepting, Thailand faced with a lot of political chaotic, political chaos. And we also have a lot of problem with the parliament. So it really take us to this year to finally get it. And actually on the 22nd January next year, people can actually getting married.

That has been a long time in the making. And what does this new law actually mean in practice for same-sex couples? So basically all the Thai citizens, regardless of their genders, can get the same equal when it comes in terms of marriage or engagement. They are now able to sign a medical treatment when their spouse is in emergency or when their spouse is not conscious to sign on their own, which has become a problem for so many years and also for thousands...

taxes benefit, now it's a good thing that they can share the burden on tax and also for like tax reduction. But also the law used to be written as for people to engage or to marry have to be males or female, but now it changed to person to person. And another important thing is the age it changed. It used to be 17 to be legally married to now 18 years old.

But the rest is the same. They got the same rights and benefits as heterosexual couples now. There have been quite a few changes apart from the fact that same-sex couples can now legally get married. And how have people been reacting to it in Thailand?

Yeah, I'll start with the number first. We have the YouGov number showing that 64% of Thai people are happy and actually support the marriage equality bill. We also have another survey from Thai publication saying that 99%

99.3% of people agree with the same-sex marriage bill. But apart from this number, you can go online or actually go on street on that day to see people celebrating. We should show a lot of pictures of people just celebrating on the same-sex marriage bill when it was passed on March 23rd this year. People just celebrating. Like, what they've been waiting for is 23 years. Like another pride parade.

Yeah, like another riot. Has there been any negative reaction at all? Yeah, actually, there are a few. Actually, on the parliament on that day of the March 23rd, there were debate as well. And there were quite a few MP who's like against the bill. And they have the thought of thinking that, oh, this will come with like a threat to female. And their argument is just like, oh, why would we have to do this if you love each other? That should be enough, right? And ignore all the right and

or the tax benefit and a lot of things, right, to sign on medical treatment. It's important for a couple to do it legally. But on a gang screen, we don't see any people go on the street to protest on the bill. Pernisa, just stay on the line for a minute. I want to play a clip from a conversation I've had with Bess Chitsinapong Nithyuna, who is an activist, and she co-founded the Young Pride Club in Chiang Mai.

For me, thinking from the perspective of young Thai queer person, I think this such law should have been passed for like 10 years ago because this law actually passed amid the changing, you know, societal values, societal values.

acceptance, especially the young generation where we have seen other countries have passed such laws. And we think that why our country has not passed yet? After the past two elections in Thailand happened, we've seen the emergence of, you know, like progressive young queer activists, young political activists, and also a new generation of, you know, parliamentarians who are really in favour to support LGBT rights.

So for that, with all of those movements come together, I feel like the general population quite really have more and more positive attitude towards our community.

But as I say, there are still some of the people who are not really support our cause. For example, in education that Panan says, some of older generation, like teacher, policymaker, especially I would say those who in the rural area, which have a lot of influence from the conservative view.

shaped by cultural and religious still oppose the freedom of expression, freedom of expressing the gender identity of young people in school, in the university. So for me, I would say the marriage law just simply directly supports the rights of the same-sex couples, but not directly protects all the LGBTIQ individuals.

in Thailand. And this highlights that we need other co-operative law and protection in terms of policy, educational policy that needs to be done.

Back to you, Puneeta. Now, Thailand is mostly Buddhist. And I'm curious, what does Buddhism say about being gay? And what is that relationship like between religion and LGBTQ plus groups in Thailand? Buddhism is actually one of the aspects that allow Thailand to be where we are today, that being quite an inclusive,

inclusivity, inclusive society that allows and open for LGBTQ people. And in Thailand, religions play an important role to society. You can't just like separate them from each other. And in Buddhism, there's no principles that against LGBTQ. So you can be LGBTQ. It's not a sin or it's not nothing. You can just do your things. Only one thing is that you can't get into monastic being transgenders or being non-binary, but that's

the only thing if you're going to live your normal life that is okay. So in this sense being Buddhisms and Thailand being Buddhisms allow us to be more open compared to other religions that might see it as a sin. Does that mean that in Thailand

In Thailand, people can identify as their preferred gender and that's recognised legally? Or is that still an issue? So that is a separate law and Thai people can't just identify themselves at their wish or according to their gender preference. So it has actually been proposed this year as well, this law, this bill, but it got rejected back in February this year. So in 2019, Taiwan's parliament became the first in Asia to legalise same-sex marriage.

Nepal registered its first same-sex union in November last year, and that was five months after the Supreme Court ruled in favour of it. Do you think, following Thailand's new law, that nearby countries could follow suit and legalise same-sex marriage any time soon?

I think a lot of activists and advocacy people really hope that what Thailand has done will influence people. And it's been a long time, right? 20 years. So we know that we're not going to expect other countries to enact it tomorrow or next year. But of course, it will be an influence.

But one thing to notice, to note is actually because in Asia or in ASEAN, there are a variety of beliefs that could really jeopardize the moving forward movement of this LGBTQ's right.

whether or not it's gender recognitions or whether or not it's same-sex marriage. For example, if we go back to religion, there used to be a study case on Myanmar as well that in the past, Myanmar used to be open to LGBTQ people, similar to Thailand. But when it got colonized, they got influence of Christianity and it's become a felony to be same-sex married.

act to have same sex activity or to be non-binary that become a felony that become criminalized. So that has been embed into the society. And after the colonization era, we have the military rule that have patriarchy mindset and that is also male dominant. That is also not allowing places

and space for LGBTQ people as well. So it's really hard to like put one model from one country to like apply to other country because they believe their social structure that the way the government is organized or democracy or dictatorship that play a lot of important role in advancing this LGBTQ right. Penisa, thank you so much for speaking to us. Thank you so much.

Thank you for listening. I'm Hannah Gelbart. This is What In The World from the BBC World Service. We'll see you next time. Bye.