As Thailand\u2019s long-awaited equal marriage law comes into effect on Thursday, police officer Pisit \u201cKew\u201d Sirihirunchai hopes to be the first in line to marry his long-term partner Chanatip \u201cJane\u201d Sirihirunchai.<\/p>\n
Some 180 same-sex couples are registering their unions at one of Bangkok\u2019s grandest shopping malls, in an event city officials helped organise to celebrate this legal milestone.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have been ready for such a long time,\u201d Pisit says. \u201cWe have just been waiting for the law to catch up and support us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The two men have been together for seven years. Eager to formalise their relationship, they have already gone to a Buddhist monk to give them an auspicious new last name they can share \u2013 Sirihirunchai. They have also asked local officials to issue a letter of intent, which they both signed, pledging to get married.<\/p>\n
But they say having their union recognised under Thai law is what they really dreamed of. It means LGBTQ+ couples now have the same rights as any other couple to get engaged and married, to manage their assets, to inherit and to adopt children.<\/p>\n
They can make decisions about medical treatment if their partner becomes ill and incapacitated, or extend financial benefits \u2013 such as Pisit\u2019s government pension \u2013 to their spouse.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to build a future together \u2013 build a house, start a small business together, maybe a caf\u00e9,\u201d he adds, making a list of all that the law has enabled. \u201cWe want to build our future together and to take care of each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prisit says he has the full support of his colleagues in the police station, and hopes he can encourage others working in government service to be open about their sexuality: \u201cThey should feel emboldened because they can see us coming out with no repercussions, only positive responses.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a younger couple Prisit and Chanatip \u2013 both in their mid-30s \u2013 have experienced fewer obstacles than those who came out much earlier.<\/p>\n
But for their community, it has been a long journey. Despite Thailand\u2019s famed tolerance towards LGBTQ+ people, activists say it took a sustained campaign to win legal recognition.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been waiting for this day for 18 years \u2013 the day everyone can recognise us openly, when we no longer need to be evasive or hide,\u201d says 59-year-old Rungtiwa Thangkanopast, who will marry her partner of 18 years in May.<\/p>\n
She had been in a marriage, arranged by her family, to a gay man, who later died. She had a daughter, through IVF, but after her husband\u2019s death began spending time, and later helping run, one of the first lesbian pubs in Bangkok. Then she met Phanlavee, who\u2019s now 45 and goes by her first name only.<\/p>\n
On Valentine\u2019s Day 2013 the two women went to the Bang Rak district office in central Bangkok to ask to be officially married \u2013 a popular place for marriage registration because the name in Thai means \u201cLove Town\u201d.<\/p>\n
This was the time when LGBTQ+ couples began challenging the official view of marriage as an exclusively heterosexual partnership by attempting to get marriage certificates at district offices.<\/p>\n
There were around 400 heterosexual couples waiting with them on that day. Rungtiwa and Phanlavee were refused, and the Thai media mocked their effort, using derogatory slang for lesbians.<\/p>\n
Still, activists managed to persuade the government to consider changing the marriage laws. A proposed civil partnership bill was put before parliament, offering some official recognition to same-sex couples, but not the same legal rights as heterosexual couples.<\/p>\n
A military coup in 2014 which deposed the elected government interrupted the movement. It would be another decade before full marriage equality was approved by parliament, in part because of the rise of young, progressive political parties that championed the cause.<\/p>\n
Their message resonated with Thais \u2013 and attitudes too had changed. By this time, same-sex marriage was legalised in many Western countries and same-sex love had become normalised in Thai culture too.<\/p>\n
Such was the shift in favour of the law that it was passed last year by a thumping majority of 400 votes to just 10 against. Even in the notoriously conservative senate only four opposed the law.<\/p>\n
And couples like Rungtiwa and Phanleeva now have their chance to have their love for each other recognised, without the risk of public derision.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith this law comes the legitimacy of our family,\u201d Rungtiwa says, \u201cWe\u2019re no longer viewed as weirdos just because our daughter isn\u2019t being raised by heterosexual parents.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new law takes out gender-specific terms like man, woman, husband and wife from 70 sections of the Thai Civil Code covering marriage, and replaces them with neutral terms like individual and spouse.<\/p>\n
However, there are still dozens of laws in the Thai legal code which have not yet been made gender-neutral, and there are still obstacles in the way of same-sex couples using surrogacy to have a family..<\/p>\n
Parents are still defined under Thai law as a mother and a father. The law also does not yet allow people to use their preferred gender on official documents; they are still stuck with their birth gender. These are areas where activists say they will still need to keep pushing for change.<\/p>\n
Yet it is a historic moment for Thailand, which is an outlier in Asia in recognising marriage equality. And it is especially significant for older couples, who have had to ride out the shifts in attitude.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really hope people will put away the old, stereotypical ideas that gay men cannot have true love,\u201dsays Chakkrit \u201cInk\u201d Vadhanavira.<\/p>\n
He and his partner Prinn, both in their 40s, have been together for 24 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe two of us have proved that we genuinely love each other through thick and thin for more than 20 years,\u201d Chakkrit says.\u201dWe have been ready to take care of each other since our first day together. We are no different from heterosexual couples.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Chakkrit\u2019s parents quickly accepted their partnership, it took Prinn\u2019s parents seven years before they could do so.<\/p>\n
The couple also wanted to share the production business they ran together, and other assets, as a couple, so they asked Prinn\u2019s parents to adopt Chakkrit officially, giving him the same family name. Prinn says the new law has brought welcome legal clarity to them.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor example, right now when a same sex couple buy something together \u2013 a large item \u2013 they cannot share ownership of it,\u201d said Prinn. \u201cAnd one of us passes away, what both have us have earned together cannot be passed on to the other. That\u2019s why marriage equality is very significant.\u201d<\/p>\n
Today, says Prinn, both sets of parents treat them as they would just like any other married children.<\/p>\n
And when they had relationship problems like any other couple, their parents helped them.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy dad even started reading gay magazines to understand me better. It was quite cute to see that.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As Thailand\u2019s long-awaited equal marriage law comes into effect on Thursday, police officer Pisit \u201cKew\u201d Sirihirunchai hopes to be the first in line to marry his long-term partner Chanatip \u201cJane\u201d Sirihirunchai. Some 180 same-sex couples are registering their unions at one of Bangkok\u2019s grandest shopping malls, in an event city officials helped organise to celebrate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108476\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}