Correspondent from Southeast Asia
As Thailand’s long-awaited equal marriage law comes into force on Thursday, police officer Pisit “Kew” Sirihirunchai hopes to be the first in line to marry his longtime partner Chanatip “Jane” Sirihirunchai.
About 180 same-sex couples are registering their unions in one of Bangkok’s biggest shopping malls, in an event city officials helped organize to celebrate the legal milestone.
“We’ve been ready for so long,” says Pisit. “We were just waiting for the law to catch us and support us.”
The two have been together for seven years. Wanting to formalize their relationship, they have already gone to a Buddhist monk to give them a nice new surname to share – Sirihirunchai. They also asked local officials to issue a letter of intent, which they both signed, committing to the wedding.
But they say having their union recognized under Thai law is what they really dreamed of. This means that LGBTQ+ couples now have the same rights as all other couples to be engaged and married, manage their assets, inherit and adopt children.
They can make decisions about medical treatment if their partner becomes ill and incapacitated, or they can extend financial benefits – such as Pisito’s state pension – to their spouse.
“We want to build the future together – build a house, start a small business together, maybe a coffee shop,” he adds, listing everything that the law made possible. “We want to build the future together and take care of each other.”
Prisit says he has the full support of his colleagues at the police station and hopes he can encourage others working in the civil service to be open about their sexuality: “They should feel encouraged because they can see that we come out without any consequences, only positive responses.”
As a younger couple, Prisit and Chanatip – both in their mid-30s – experienced fewer obstacles than those who came out much earlier.
But for their community, it’s been a long journey. Despite Thailand’s known tolerance for LGBTQ+ people, activists say it took a long campaign to gain legal recognition.
“We have been waiting for this day for 18 years – the day when everyone can openly recognize us, when we no longer need to avoid or hide,” says 59-year-old Rungtiwa Thangkanopast, who will marry her partner of 18 years in May.
She was married, arranged by her family, to a homosexual, who later died. She had a daughter through IVF, but after her husband’s death she started spending time and later helping run one of the first lesbian pubs in Bangkok. Then she met Phanlavee, who is now 45 and goes by her first name only.
On Valentine’s Day 2013, two women went to the Bang Rak district office in central Bangkok to request an official wedding – a popular place to register marriages because the name means “city of love” in Thai.
It was a time when LGBTQ+ couples began to challenge the official position on marriage as an exclusively heterosexual partnership by trying to obtain marriage certificates at district offices.
About 400 heterosexual couples were waiting with them that day. Rungtiwa and Phanlavee were rejected, and the Thai media ridiculed their efforts, using derogatory slang for lesbians.
However, activists managed to convince the government to consider changing the marriage law. A proposed law on civil partnerships has been put before parliament, offering some official recognition to same-sex couples, but not the same legal rights as heterosexual couples.
A military coup in 2014 that overthrew the elected government ended the movement. It would be another decade before parliament approved full marriage equality, in part due to the rise of young, progressive political parties that championed the cause.
Their message resonated with Thai people – and attitudes changed. At that time, same-sex marriage was legalized in many Western countries, and same-sex love became normalized in Thai culture as well.
There was such a shift in favor of the law that last year it was passed by an overwhelming majority of 400 votes to just 10 against. Even in the notoriously conservative Senate, only four opposed the bill.
And couples like Rungtiwa and Phanleeve now have the chance to confess their love for each other, without the risk of public ridicule.
“With this law comes the legitimacy of our family,” says Rungtiwa, “we are no longer seen as weirdos just because our daughter is not being raised by heterosexual parents.”
The new law removes gender-specific terms such as man, woman, husband and wife from the 70 sections of the Thai Civil Code that cover marriage and replaces them with neutral terms such as individual and spouse.
However, there are still dozens of laws in Thailand’s legal code that are still not gender neutral, and there are still obstacles in the way of same-sex couples using surrogacy to create a family.
Thai law still defines parents as mother and 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 continue to push for change.
Still, this is a historic moment for Thailand, which is an exception in Asia in recognizing marriage equality. And it is especially important for older couples, who had to survive changes in attitude.
“I really hope people will throw away the old, stereotypical ideas that gay men can’t have true love,” says Chakkrit “Ink” Vadhanavira.
He and his partner Prinn, both in their 40s, have been together for 24 years.
“The two of us have proven that we truly love each other in any case for more than 20 years,” says Chakkrit. “We’ve been willing to take care of each other since our first day together. We’re no different than heterosexual couples.”
While Chakkrit’s parents were quick to accept their partnership, Prinn’s parents took seven years before they could do so.
The couple also wanted to share the manufacturing business they ran together and other assets, so they asked Prinn’s parents to officially adopt Chakkrit, giving him the same surname. Prinn says the new law has brought them welcome legal clarity.
“For example, right now when a same-sex couple buys something together — a large item — they can’t share ownership of it,” Prinn said. “And if one of us dies, what we both earned together cannot be transferred to the other. That’s why equality in marriage is very important.”
Today, says Prinn, both sets of parents treat them like any other child of the marriage.
And when they had problems in their relationship like any other couple, their parents helped them.
“My dad even started reading gay magazines to understand me better. It was really sweet to see that.”
Additional reporting by Thanyarat Doksone and Ryn Jirenuwat in Bangkok
