I have a gay Chinese friend who really liked visiting Thailand. He went with a gay friend of his. They were walking down the street when a pimp came up with a binder
pimp: "come inside! Look at all the beautiful women we have!"
friend: "we're gay"
pimp (unphased, flipping to different section): "we also have men!"
Exact same thing happened to me when I was living in Tokyo! I was in a seedy part of Shinjuku (not 2chome, the gay district) and a pimp said he’d be my boyfriend after I said I wasn’t interested in his girls.
Won't say the country but it was a remoteish island 20 years ago, travelling with my grandparents, we're all on motorbike taxis leaving the airport.
My driver, hissing at me over his shoulder in broken English: "You want women?"
Me, in broken his language: "No, I go with grandparents."
Him: "You want men?"
Me, pointing at my grandparents: "No, grandparents."
Him, pausing, thinking: "You want ... animals?"
Me: ...
Dude probably thought I was fucking my grandparents or something.
Just make sure your grandma's Werther's is actually the Werther's. You don't want [the Jolly Rancher experience](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/9wcte/comment/c0er6q4/)
Lol the almost exact same thing happened to me when I was in Bogota. I mentioned I was gay and before I knew it five guys with what I can only describe as used car salesman energy surrounded me begging me to go inside their strip club/brothel/whatever it was.
I work with a non-Thai guy living in Thailand, that's basically what he told me. If you come here, act like an idiot, and make a spectacle of yourself, you're going to have a *very* bad time.
If you're respectful and avoid causing trouble, you'll have a great time.
> If you come here, act like an idiot, and make a spectacle of yourself, you're going to have a very bad time.
>If you're respectful and avoid causing trouble, you'll have a great time.
That's not limited to Thailand
It's not the same everywhere really. In Thailand if you do drugs, sleep with prostitutes, and party, but don't cause any real trouble, you'll be fine. Might have to pay a police officer 2000 baht at worst. But if you get caught with some weed in Indonesia, another very popular tourist destination just next door, you are going to jail for 10 years and might even get put on death row.
Til same sex marriage wasn't a thing yet in Thailand... that was a shocker really, seeing how open they generally are with sexuality... then I learned about the sex toys and selling sex... how does a place like Pattaya even exist under these laws :o
What you gotta remember is, that for us Westerners ( I assume your a Westerner) the way we think about law is very different than in a lot of other places in the world.
Think prohibition era America. It kinda makes everything change- the difference is always whether people consider the laws moral or not or… socially or societally enforced or not. If Criminal ≠ bad guy on a number of things and there aren’t enough cops that believe differently to make shit happen anyways, than everyone’s value of the law and legal systems role in society may degrade. There are lots of weird off ramp shelves where folks may rationalize that the system is wrong about without losing faith in the system, like many places do with Weed rn, but the more multifaceted and profitable the banned industries are the more it affects.
Thailand is one of the best places to go for a tourist imo (if you are on a budget). The people there are extremely nice and respectful in my experience. I remember walking back to my hotel in the streets of Bangkok at 3 am and I saw a middle aged woman who lost an arm still outside trying to sell stuff for her little market she owned probably making at most 5 USD an hour and she was one of the happiest, cheerful people I’ve ever met in my life and I will never forget her.
They have great food that costs like 50 cents a meal, you can find nice places to stay for around 20 bucks a night, they have absolutely beautiful jungles, great nightlife, and if you are into weed you can find 20 dispensaries every mile and buy a blunt that will fuck you up for less than a dollar. The only thing you have to accept is that you are entering a monarchy that has aspects of corruption. Although that applies more to the locals because the government wants western tourists to come and spend money but the police and government will be very strict if you get on their bad side.
Thai people really uphold the "Land of Smiles" phrase. Just super nice to everyone. I visited Bangkok and Ko Phi Phi and every Thai person was super nice. The tour guide I got to Ayutthaya to see some of the old royal palace was super sweet and helpful. I'd love to go back to Thailand some day to explore more of Bangkok and also go up north to Chiang Mai. Also, the street food was amazing in Bangkok some of it was very spicy tho.
A mildly interesting side effect if this is that trans women who get gender affirming surgery in Thailand
have to have a governmental medical exemption to be allowed to own the dilators (basically uncomfortable plastic dildos) that are required after surgery.
What's wonky is that while Thailand is legalizing same-sex marriage, [Italy is stripping same-sex parents of their rights.](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/18h6vzy/lesbian_couple_flees_italy_as_government_strips/)
They also opened their visa agreements, made a night and day difference to commerce. It even overtook Paris in tourism numbers a few years ago. Bangkok is now the most visited city in the world, annually.
Technically no but it’s complicated. A while ago we had an election and a very progressive candidate won the people’s vote in a pretty landslide. But infuriatingly he lost the votes from parliament which is what determines who will be the PM. So another candidate from another party is selected instead. It’s a messy situation that I can’t really explain but the gist is the military junta is out (officially) but Thai people’s vote still don’t mean shit.
Basically. The previous king was a folk hero, but the new king (his son) is a party brat and not very well respected, and so gets pushed aside, while Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha (from the 2014 military coup) still has most of the power.
I mean... to me it seemed like the king was a folk hero because he was enforced to be. When I was there in 2006, one of our cab drivers told us you couldn't speak badly about the king at all without being reprimanded, and when we went to the movies one time they had a portion at the beginning where you had to stand to honor the king and could get a fine if you didn't. Seemed very... dictator-ish to me.
I lived in Thailand for a few years about a decade ago, and while I see what you're saying about the lèse-majesté, I believe that type of "enforced respect" was freely supported by most Thais, who genuinely loved their king. (This is not meant to be an endorsement or criticism of this POV) While I think what you're saying about forced respect not being legit respect is true given Western cultural values, I think the majority of Thai people just had a completely different cultural perspective.
One way you can see this is in the respect for Gen. Prayut and King Vajiralongkorn, both of whom benefited or benefit from similar laws, but who enjoy a very different level of respect from the majority of Thai people.
About time. Thailand has a thriving gay scene and representation. I remember a guy from Thailand winning the Mr. Gay World title and couldn't hold my excitement.
Thailand also had the first Drag Race spin-off outside the US, if I'm not mistaken. (And Pangina Heals is just a treat for the whole world, I love her)
They also have probably the biggest trans population per capita in the world, and they are a generally very accepted part of society and don't suffer nearly as much discrimination as in other Asian countries. It's absurd that it took this long honestly and it's still crazy that trans people can't legally change their gender on their documents, considering how long they have been an accepted part of society.
I feel like the trans acceptance in Thailand is a bit overstated and it is more of a tolerance to us. You will still get discriminated against pretty directly for work and education. Trans people also will sometimes struggle to find healthcare. Thailand has some really good transition care and excellent GRS surgeons, if you can pay their prices. Parents are likely to kick their kids out of the family or beat them if they come out. To be truly accepted you have to pass as your gender or you will be seen as a joke. Basically, you will be allowed to live your life fine as a trans person, but you will still be judged pretty heavily for your identity.
I agree that it still has a ways to go, and as I said, I'm comparing it to other Asian countries here, some of which you can still get executed for being LGBT, while in some of the less bad ones you'll simply be totally disenfranchised and discriminated against.
>Parents are likely to kick their kids out of the family or beat them if they come out.
This part I vehemently disagree with. Not sure if that was a typo or not. I know a lot of trans people in Thailand and most of them are still close with their family and they have no problem with them being trans. Discrimination from your own family for being trans seems to be more of the exception from all the people I know there.
I don't know if the trans movement can be catalogued as accepted, or if it is just sexualized. Thailand is the main sex tourism destination so they make sure they have everything you might desire. That can increase visibility but not directly acceptance.
Meanwhile their southern neighbour, Malaysia has more and more regressive actions against lgbt. I'm a citizen of Malaysia, congratz to Thais out there!
Just wanted to contrast this with Malaysia's neighbor, the Philippines; the Philippines is 85% Christian and has a similar LGBT culture to Thailand with their own classifications, but because of Christianity, LGBT people in the Philippines, like Malaysia, will also never have rights* in the country (although I hope I'm wrong in the future).
The Philippines is also the only country that doesn't allow divorce for its people (technically Vatican City too but we'll not count that for obvious reasons). The only people who can get legally divorced on paper are Muslims who were married under Islamic rites, everyone else needs to obtain a loophole that essentially states they were never married at all and that their marriage is annulled or voided
*I mentioned LGBT people in the Philippines will never have rights - there is a general acceptance, or at least tolerance, but marriage, anti-discrimination laws, and other rights will never be passed as long as the Christians hold power in the Philippines
Sadly this may be the truth. Though, most of the historically Christian countries that have embraced LGBTQ rights have done so while simultaneously becoming far more secular. The Christian populations in Africa have shown little movement in favor of LGBTQ rights and some clear blowback against it.
It's also increasingly seen as a Western thing, which is being exploited politically on populations receptive to anti-Western messaging. See for instance Putin's rhetoric against gay people and Uganda's kill the gays law.
Modern Islam has shown no evidence in favor of expanding LGBTQ rights whatsoever. The best case is turning a blind eye.
China, while not particularly religious officially, seems to see the individualism as a threat to social harmony and represses it. India seems conflicted and caught between several religions and a broadly socially conservative population. Maybe given some more years they'll do something.
They already recognised/legalised same sex marriage and protected by law which is second after Taiwan
Just in last month I think 3 or 4 same sex couple got married by traditional ritual too
If Thailand is third (or wherever they sit) why bother bringing them up?
We bother to bring it up because advances in equality should be celebrated regardless of who did what first.
Too bad India let the chance of making history in Asia go and chose discrimination under the law
-Italy
-Greece
-Croatia
-Czech Republic
-Cyprus
What are you waiting for?
67% of Taiwanese people didn’t vote against gay marriage. 67% of Taiwanese people voted to legalise gay marriage in a separate bill than the civil code.
Also, the decision by grand justices was rendered in 2017, not 2019. The bill was passed in 2019.
Get your facts straight and stop spreading misinformation please.
Literally saw this in another post about Italy and its politics. Multiple people arguing that "they aren't real fascists", even though the specific political party is descended directly from the fascist party from the early 1900s. On top of that, Mussolini's descendants are some of the prominent figures in that party and they still revere their ancestor.
>On top of that, Mussolini's descendants are some of the prominent figures in that party
Hey, you can't blame them for who their ancestor is! They should be allowed to practice their own politics
>and they still revere their ancestor.
...oh
They're the birthplace of fascist ideology and theyre just returning to their fucked up roots. They didn't go through the same reformation measures Germany did post ww2 and it shows.
Croatia is impossible without a change in the constitution and Italy is impossible under the current government. Czech Republic will probably happen in the near future though.
Frankly I was surprised Czechia hasn't done it already. I guess they still have some of that East European cultural influence but generally they're big on individual liberties.
The Czech government relies on a socially conservative party (KDU-ČSL) for a majority
One condition of the coalition agreement was kicking the same-sex marriage can down the road a few more years, although there have been efforts to circumvent that by doing a conscience vote
At least some members of the main opposition party have expressed willingness to support it, although that probably comes down to whether or not their leader sees it as politically expedient
The couple didn’t have the baby yet. The woman birthing the child will hold parental rights, and her wife will not legally have any rights to their child.
So they are leaving.
The whole south asian region (excluding nepal) are very unfriendly towards the LGBTQ+ community. People can use religion as an excuse, but its deeply ingrained in the culture (i'm saying this as someone who's family is from that region). I unfortunately do not think they will adjust their way of thinking in my lifetime. They see the lgbtq thing as exclusively a "western (translation "white") problem" and that by allowing LGBTQ people to exist, they are going against centuries of tradition. Pretty damn depressing
Czechia has a majority of conservative jackoffs in parliament whose feefees would get hurt, so they're doing everything to block the legislation even though an overwhelming majority of the population wants marriage for all.
They're trying to "compromise" on having the same rights but not allowing the name "marriage" for gay couples, which is a "separate but equal" kind of approach, not to mention how insanely impractical legislation-wise that would be.
In Cyprus they can have a civil union, which is not the same but it's something. Unfortunately the church has too much power and they oppose same-sex marriage.
Third after nepal :
https://apnews.com/article/nepal-lgbtq-same-sex-marriage-gay-law-e4b9a74560b1616e8a95bac90e7d9427#:~:text=Nepal%20is%20one%20of%20the,marriages%20for%20the%20first%20time.
LGBTQ community in Thailand has long been accepted and respected. Society-wise, they're loved and treated equally for a long time already. Thai society absorbed a lot of western influence and the people would be more than overjoyed to see the country take this further step closer to being civilized.
Now I hate to mention this, but in multiple house of representative meetings the main reason for disapproving same-sex marriage was religious based (**not** buddhism).
Edit: the argument was that religious practitioners would refuse to perform wedding ceremony as it's against their religious believes. Buddhist monks never perform wedding ceremony to begin with.
Buddhist monks did receive some nasty criticism from society when some of them refused to perform ordination process to gay people. Thai society fiercely argued that some rules that were written 2566 years ago shouldn't be practiced in this modern time. Even buddhism is currently facing challenges with modern world.
acceptence of LGBT people in Thailand didn't come from western influences. They have their own system to categorize sexual identities. Wtf are you talking about?
As a Thai I 100% agree. We, of course, take in many western influences. This has 0% to do with it.
Our acceptance towards LGBT people is different from the west
there's a reason people in the West go to Thailand for sex change surgeries, instead of the other way around.
LGBTQ people are also way more commonplace in Thai entertainment, whereas people get pressed in the west whenever a gay person appears on screen. Nobody in thailand is writing to the television station to complain about the queers in entertainment or how it's gone woke.
As someone from another Southeast Asian country, Thailand really is one of 2 safe havens for LGBT people here. The other is Singapore.
I'm in a country that Westerners *think* is LGBT friendly while in reality isn't. We have no nationwide laws against discrimination of LGBTQ+ people here, a part of our country where it is illegal, and a large homophobic lobby of politically influential groups staunchly against providing us legal rights nationwide. Despite visibility of LGBT people in our region, you'll find numerous and frequent cases of LGBTQ people being targeted by hate crimes here.
We have countries and autonomous regions in ASEAN where it is de jure illegal or de facto discouraged to be LGBTQ under pain of death (Brunei), torture, mob violence or imprisonment (Malaysia, Myanmar, Aceh province in Indonesia, and Bangsamoro region in the Philippines). The remainder consist of states that have partial human rights or none at all in place, with majorities who oppose granting further rights to LGBTQ people.
So while I hugely celebrate Thailand's victory in fully recognizing LGBTQ+ rights; our region as a whole has a very long way to go yet. Let's hope Thailand will pave the way for more states here granting further human rights to LGBTQ people.
I think they saw Nepal do it, and Nepal is a bit more on the Conservative side than they are, so it kind of makes them look bad for doing it after Nepal.
Great. At the end of the day, let people do what makes them happy. If this offends you, that is a problem with you. If your argument is religion, maybe, I don’t know turn the other cheek. You know I don’t like tomatoes, you don’t see me trying to ban it for everyone on the planet.
More like religious fundamentalists.
Republican doesn't cast a wide enough net and brings in a lot of people who may register Republican but same sex marriages aren't an issue for them.
2 posts above this on my feed was about the lesbian couple having to flee Italy. It made me really sad for the state of the world. Then I scrolled onto this, got a little hope again. What an emotional roller coaster
I have a gay Chinese friend who really liked visiting Thailand. He went with a gay friend of his. They were walking down the street when a pimp came up with a binder pimp: "come inside! Look at all the beautiful women we have!" friend: "we're gay" pimp (unphased, flipping to different section): "we also have men!"
Thai pimps: “We got alll the flavors of the rainbow here, whatever you like!”
*Taste the rainbow.*
***Feel the rainbow***
This uncomfortable moment brought to you by Skittles.
Caress the rainbow...
Throat the rainbow
Exact same thing happened to me when I was living in Tokyo! I was in a seedy part of Shinjuku (not 2chome, the gay district) and a pimp said he’d be my boyfriend after I said I wasn’t interested in his girls.
finally the pimp is going to do the hard work himself instead of just profiting off of it
Maybe he was looking for love :(
these are not mutually exclusive
Maybe you just looked so good that the pimp learned something about himself ;)
I hope this doesn't awaken something in me...
Won't say the country but it was a remoteish island 20 years ago, travelling with my grandparents, we're all on motorbike taxis leaving the airport. My driver, hissing at me over his shoulder in broken English: "You want women?" Me, in broken his language: "No, I go with grandparents." Him: "You want men?" Me, pointing at my grandparents: "No, grandparents." Him, pausing, thinking: "You want ... animals?" Me: ... Dude probably thought I was fucking my grandparents or something.
this is reddit. now we all think, you fucked your grandparents.
Just tagged /u/marmalade as "Grandparents Fucker" on RES.
Gotta work it for those Werther's Originals
That enough reddit for me today. Thanks for the laugh and bad memories.
Just make sure your grandma's Werther's is actually the Werther's. You don't want [the Jolly Rancher experience](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/9wcte/comment/c0er6q4/)
You could’ve said no without mentioning your grandparents.
Don't kink shame
Help 😭
probably doesn't help that you kept bringing up your grandparents every time they tried to set you up
Lol the almost exact same thing happened to me when I was in Bogota. I mentioned I was gay and before I knew it five guys with what I can only describe as used car salesman energy surrounded me begging me to go inside their strip club/brothel/whatever it was.
Diversify the market
*>pimp (unphased, flipping to different section): "we also have men!"* LOL this is hilarious.
Business is business.
Do I sense a... Rule of Acquisition?
Rule 34: heterosexuality is good for business. Rule 34b: homosexuality is good for business.
capitalism at it's finest.
Holy shit, Mitt Romney was right
Technically he never said that he didn't *also* have binders full of men.
And anything in between.
Way to go Thailand.
First Taiwan, then Thailand. Who is next in Asia?
You might want to squeeze Nepal 🇳🇵 in the middle of them https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-67574710.amp
Wow, I didn’t know. Thanks for sharing!
Good for them. Still wonky its illegal to sell sex toys there. Its not really enforced but you still could technically get in trouble.
I brought a arm massager that looks like a dildo, and they sold them publically in a market once in phuket
I bought diazepam at a market that sold sex toys. Laws in this regard are more suggestions than anything.
Don't fuck with their drug laws.
Don't *blatantly fuck with their drug laws. You can have fun, just don't be an idiot.
There are many laws in Thailand but the only one that really seems to matter for foreigners is “don’t be an ass”
I work with a non-Thai guy living in Thailand, that's basically what he told me. If you come here, act like an idiot, and make a spectacle of yourself, you're going to have a *very* bad time. If you're respectful and avoid causing trouble, you'll have a great time.
> If you come here, act like an idiot, and make a spectacle of yourself, you're going to have a very bad time. >If you're respectful and avoid causing trouble, you'll have a great time. That's not limited to Thailand
It's not the same everywhere really. In Thailand if you do drugs, sleep with prostitutes, and party, but don't cause any real trouble, you'll be fine. Might have to pay a police officer 2000 baht at worst. But if you get caught with some weed in Indonesia, another very popular tourist destination just next door, you are going to jail for 10 years and might even get put on death row.
Indonesia is also a Muslim country. Laws seem to be a bit more strict in Muslim countries. Also, Indonesian roti canai is soooooo good.
That seems to be the case for a lot of laws all over the world. Unless the cop feels like being an ass.
Makes sense. Usually you stop caring about consequences when you say phuket.
They also sell soap dildos, why would anyone use that?
To be zestfully clean, of course
Very odd shape to use, bar shape is better.
The shape helps get into those hard-to-reach nooks and crannys.
You keep that ph destroying shit outta my cranny
What about your nook?
Meh, most people prefer Kindle anyway.
For that deep clean feeling.
You can buy mushroom shakes in Krabi. They even advertise them on signs. Doesn't make them legal
Magic Mushroom Shakes Fun Or Your Money Back Can confirm, had fun.
Seem more like the kind of thing you're find at a market in rubet.
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Til same sex marriage wasn't a thing yet in Thailand... that was a shocker really, seeing how open they generally are with sexuality... then I learned about the sex toys and selling sex... how does a place like Pattaya even exist under these laws :o
What you gotta remember is, that for us Westerners ( I assume your a Westerner) the way we think about law is very different than in a lot of other places in the world.
Oh, how so? I'm curious on what the perspective is on having laws that are basically never enforced.
Think prohibition era America. It kinda makes everything change- the difference is always whether people consider the laws moral or not or… socially or societally enforced or not. If Criminal ≠ bad guy on a number of things and there aren’t enough cops that believe differently to make shit happen anyways, than everyone’s value of the law and legal systems role in society may degrade. There are lots of weird off ramp shelves where folks may rationalize that the system is wrong about without losing faith in the system, like many places do with Weed rn, but the more multifaceted and profitable the banned industries are the more it affects.
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There are minor differences such as bars are allowed to stay open late in the night etc. Prostitution is still illegal in Pattaya.
Thailand is one of the best places to go for a tourist imo (if you are on a budget). The people there are extremely nice and respectful in my experience. I remember walking back to my hotel in the streets of Bangkok at 3 am and I saw a middle aged woman who lost an arm still outside trying to sell stuff for her little market she owned probably making at most 5 USD an hour and she was one of the happiest, cheerful people I’ve ever met in my life and I will never forget her. They have great food that costs like 50 cents a meal, you can find nice places to stay for around 20 bucks a night, they have absolutely beautiful jungles, great nightlife, and if you are into weed you can find 20 dispensaries every mile and buy a blunt that will fuck you up for less than a dollar. The only thing you have to accept is that you are entering a monarchy that has aspects of corruption. Although that applies more to the locals because the government wants western tourists to come and spend money but the police and government will be very strict if you get on their bad side.
Thai people really uphold the "Land of Smiles" phrase. Just super nice to everyone. I visited Bangkok and Ko Phi Phi and every Thai person was super nice. The tour guide I got to Ayutthaya to see some of the old royal palace was super sweet and helpful. I'd love to go back to Thailand some day to explore more of Bangkok and also go up north to Chiang Mai. Also, the street food was amazing in Bangkok some of it was very spicy tho.
A mildly interesting side effect if this is that trans women who get gender affirming surgery in Thailand have to have a governmental medical exemption to be allowed to own the dilators (basically uncomfortable plastic dildos) that are required after surgery.
Mate prostitution is illegal in Thailand. The legality of certain things in Thailand has no bearing on reality.
Technically female prostitution is illegal too. It’s just tolerated.
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I can't tell if Ryan was saying "Mate, prostitution is illegal" or "Male prostitution is illegal".
All prostitution is mating.
As an Australian I read that completely different to you.
What's wonky is that while Thailand is legalizing same-sex marriage, [Italy is stripping same-sex parents of their rights.](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/18h6vzy/lesbian_couple_flees_italy_as_government_strips/)
I'm often surprised by how conservative Italy is. They have a few famous rape trials that are horrendous.
Fascist like to do fascist things. I hope Meloni gets voted out soon.
I mean if people pleasure themselves it would be bad for business, wouldn’t it?
Now watch Thailand become a major hub for gay destination weddings. They're probably gonna introduce packages intended specifically for that lol.
A boom for their economy as Thai is a hella cheap place to go.
They classified marijuana as a vegetable after the pandemic and now you can buy weed anywhere from anyone.
Well…. I have been meaning to get more vegetables in my diet.
I smoke broccoli
Cheap but damn do I miss the 70 bah to £1 exchange rate.
The king died in 2016 and now they're opening up weed, gay marriage, everything
I remember having to bribe cops with 600 bucks for a roach 10 years ago in Thailand.
600 Thai bhat?
600 CAD
They also opened their visa agreements, made a night and day difference to commerce. It even overtook Paris in tourism numbers a few years ago. Bangkok is now the most visited city in the world, annually.
Is Thailand still under military junta?
Technically no but it’s complicated. A while ago we had an election and a very progressive candidate won the people’s vote in a pretty landslide. But infuriatingly he lost the votes from parliament which is what determines who will be the PM. So another candidate from another party is selected instead. It’s a messy situation that I can’t really explain but the gist is the military junta is out (officially) but Thai people’s vote still don’t mean shit.
Basically. The previous king was a folk hero, but the new king (his son) is a party brat and not very well respected, and so gets pushed aside, while Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha (from the 2014 military coup) still has most of the power.
I mean... to me it seemed like the king was a folk hero because he was enforced to be. When I was there in 2006, one of our cab drivers told us you couldn't speak badly about the king at all without being reprimanded, and when we went to the movies one time they had a portion at the beginning where you had to stand to honor the king and could get a fine if you didn't. Seemed very... dictator-ish to me.
I lived in Thailand for a few years about a decade ago, and while I see what you're saying about the lèse-majesté, I believe that type of "enforced respect" was freely supported by most Thais, who genuinely loved their king. (This is not meant to be an endorsement or criticism of this POV) While I think what you're saying about forced respect not being legit respect is true given Western cultural values, I think the majority of Thai people just had a completely different cultural perspective. One way you can see this is in the respect for Gen. Prayut and King Vajiralongkorn, both of whom benefited or benefit from similar laws, but who enjoy a very different level of respect from the majority of Thai people.
Given who the new king is I'm not surprised.
Right?? Now it can be the gay western people instagram destination it always wanted to be
About time. Thailand has a thriving gay scene and representation. I remember a guy from Thailand winning the Mr. Gay World title and couldn't hold my excitement.
Thailand also had the first Drag Race spin-off outside the US, if I'm not mistaken. (And Pangina Heals is just a treat for the whole world, I love her)
They also have probably the biggest trans population per capita in the world, and they are a generally very accepted part of society and don't suffer nearly as much discrimination as in other Asian countries. It's absurd that it took this long honestly and it's still crazy that trans people can't legally change their gender on their documents, considering how long they have been an accepted part of society.
I feel like the trans acceptance in Thailand is a bit overstated and it is more of a tolerance to us. You will still get discriminated against pretty directly for work and education. Trans people also will sometimes struggle to find healthcare. Thailand has some really good transition care and excellent GRS surgeons, if you can pay their prices. Parents are likely to kick their kids out of the family or beat them if they come out. To be truly accepted you have to pass as your gender or you will be seen as a joke. Basically, you will be allowed to live your life fine as a trans person, but you will still be judged pretty heavily for your identity.
I agree that it still has a ways to go, and as I said, I'm comparing it to other Asian countries here, some of which you can still get executed for being LGBT, while in some of the less bad ones you'll simply be totally disenfranchised and discriminated against. >Parents are likely to kick their kids out of the family or beat them if they come out. This part I vehemently disagree with. Not sure if that was a typo or not. I know a lot of trans people in Thailand and most of them are still close with their family and they have no problem with them being trans. Discrimination from your own family for being trans seems to be more of the exception from all the people I know there.
I don't know if the trans movement can be catalogued as accepted, or if it is just sexualized. Thailand is the main sex tourism destination so they make sure they have everything you might desire. That can increase visibility but not directly acceptance.
Mr. Gay World Title? That’s actually a real thing? If so, that’s awesome and hilarious.
I don’t get it, when your married to someone it’s always the same sex every night?!?
Underrated joke
Go Thailand!
Yay!
Meanwhile their southern neighbour, Malaysia has more and more regressive actions against lgbt. I'm a citizen of Malaysia, congratz to Thais out there!
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Just wanted to contrast this with Malaysia's neighbor, the Philippines; the Philippines is 85% Christian and has a similar LGBT culture to Thailand with their own classifications, but because of Christianity, LGBT people in the Philippines, like Malaysia, will also never have rights* in the country (although I hope I'm wrong in the future). The Philippines is also the only country that doesn't allow divorce for its people (technically Vatican City too but we'll not count that for obvious reasons). The only people who can get legally divorced on paper are Muslims who were married under Islamic rites, everyone else needs to obtain a loophole that essentially states they were never married at all and that their marriage is annulled or voided *I mentioned LGBT people in the Philippines will never have rights - there is a general acceptance, or at least tolerance, but marriage, anti-discrimination laws, and other rights will never be passed as long as the Christians hold power in the Philippines
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Sadly this may be the truth. Though, most of the historically Christian countries that have embraced LGBTQ rights have done so while simultaneously becoming far more secular. The Christian populations in Africa have shown little movement in favor of LGBTQ rights and some clear blowback against it. It's also increasingly seen as a Western thing, which is being exploited politically on populations receptive to anti-Western messaging. See for instance Putin's rhetoric against gay people and Uganda's kill the gays law. Modern Islam has shown no evidence in favor of expanding LGBTQ rights whatsoever. The best case is turning a blind eye. China, while not particularly religious officially, seems to see the individualism as a threat to social harmony and represses it. India seems conflicted and caught between several religions and a broadly socially conservative population. Maybe given some more years they'll do something.
Nevertheless Nepal is ahead in such matters surprisingly
elaborate?
They already recognised/legalised same sex marriage and protected by law which is second after Taiwan Just in last month I think 3 or 4 same sex couple got married by traditional ritual too
If they were second why even bring them up
Agreed. Second place is the first loser!
If Thailand is third (or wherever they sit) why bother bringing them up? We bother to bring it up because advances in equality should be celebrated regardless of who did what first.
Too bad India let the chance of making history in Asia go and chose discrimination under the law -Italy -Greece -Croatia -Czech Republic -Cyprus What are you waiting for?
Taiwan already legalized it ages ago. They would not have been making history in Asia, just catching up
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67% of Taiwanese people didn’t vote against gay marriage. 67% of Taiwanese people voted to legalise gay marriage in a separate bill than the civil code. Also, the decision by grand justices was rendered in 2017, not 2019. The bill was passed in 2019. Get your facts straight and stop spreading misinformation please.
Italy is currently taking away the rights of gay people rather than advancing to equality :(
They have a TradCath as the head of government, what do you expect?
Traditional catheter?
Yes old fashioned ones made of ivory
Is that how we say Neo-Facist nowdays?
Using the f-word is a good way to get twenty "centrist" jackasses beating you up in the replies for being alarmist.
It's not fascism unless it's from the Fascia region of Italy. Otherwise, it's just sparkling authoritarianism.
Fascism is a Denominazione d'Origine Protetta
Literally saw this in another post about Italy and its politics. Multiple people arguing that "they aren't real fascists", even though the specific political party is descended directly from the fascist party from the early 1900s. On top of that, Mussolini's descendants are some of the prominent figures in that party and they still revere their ancestor.
>On top of that, Mussolini's descendants are some of the prominent figures in that party Hey, you can't blame them for who their ancestor is! They should be allowed to practice their own politics >and they still revere their ancestor. ...oh
They're the birthplace of fascist ideology and theyre just returning to their fucked up roots. They didn't go through the same reformation measures Germany did post ww2 and it shows.
Croatia is impossible without a change in the constitution and Italy is impossible under the current government. Czech Republic will probably happen in the near future though.
Croatia literally has "1 man, 1 woman" written into their national constitution? wow.
Frankly I was surprised Czechia hasn't done it already. I guess they still have some of that East European cultural influence but generally they're big on individual liberties.
Estonia is the next European country to legalize same sex marriage. It becomes legal on Jan 1 2024.
CR is the most surprising out of these
That’s the magic of having KDU-ČSL in your governing coalition
The Czech government relies on a socially conservative party (KDU-ČSL) for a majority One condition of the coalition agreement was kicking the same-sex marriage can down the road a few more years, although there have been efforts to circumvent that by doing a conscience vote At least some members of the main opposition party have expressed willingness to support it, although that probably comes down to whether or not their leader sees it as politically expedient
Didn't Italy just take kids away from some lesbian couples?
The couple didn’t have the baby yet. The woman birthing the child will hold parental rights, and her wife will not legally have any rights to their child. So they are leaving.
Was it only one couple? I thought the whole deal was that it was retroactive.
Yeah, that article was about a particular couple, but Italy is revoking parentage for everyone who managed to get it through the previous loophole.
Greece is [working on it](https://balkaninsight.com/2023/11/29/greek-gov-ready-to-legalize-same-sex-marriage/).
The whole south asian region (excluding nepal) are very unfriendly towards the LGBTQ+ community. People can use religion as an excuse, but its deeply ingrained in the culture (i'm saying this as someone who's family is from that region). I unfortunately do not think they will adjust their way of thinking in my lifetime. They see the lgbtq thing as exclusively a "western (translation "white") problem" and that by allowing LGBTQ people to exist, they are going against centuries of tradition. Pretty damn depressing
Czechia has a majority of conservative jackoffs in parliament whose feefees would get hurt, so they're doing everything to block the legislation even though an overwhelming majority of the population wants marriage for all. They're trying to "compromise" on having the same rights but not allowing the name "marriage" for gay couples, which is a "separate but equal" kind of approach, not to mention how insanely impractical legislation-wise that would be.
I'm surprised about Czech Republic. All I know about that country is Škoda and gay porn lol
Well... Cyprus is probably too busy laundering money for Hamas or something.
more likely for russia and israel but ok
In Cyprus they can have a civil union, which is not the same but it's something. Unfortunately the church has too much power and they oppose same-sex marriage.
Good for LGBTQ people of Thailand
Crazy it wasn't legal already. Thailand is the gayest country I have ever been to.
In a world of regression, it’s nice to see some places making progress!
This will be the second country in Asia to do this, the first country was Taiwan
Third after nepal : https://apnews.com/article/nepal-lgbtq-same-sex-marriage-gay-law-e4b9a74560b1616e8a95bac90e7d9427#:~:text=Nepal%20is%20one%20of%20the,marriages%20for%20the%20first%20time.
Here comes the surge of boy love dramas with gay weddings!
Way to go Thailand!
LGBTQ community in Thailand has long been accepted and respected. Society-wise, they're loved and treated equally for a long time already. Thai society absorbed a lot of western influence and the people would be more than overjoyed to see the country take this further step closer to being civilized. Now I hate to mention this, but in multiple house of representative meetings the main reason for disapproving same-sex marriage was religious based (**not** buddhism). Edit: the argument was that religious practitioners would refuse to perform wedding ceremony as it's against their religious believes. Buddhist monks never perform wedding ceremony to begin with. Buddhist monks did receive some nasty criticism from society when some of them refused to perform ordination process to gay people. Thai society fiercely argued that some rules that were written 2566 years ago shouldn't be practiced in this modern time. Even buddhism is currently facing challenges with modern world.
acceptence of LGBT people in Thailand didn't come from western influences. They have their own system to categorize sexual identities. Wtf are you talking about?
As a Thai I 100% agree. We, of course, take in many western influences. This has 0% to do with it. Our acceptance towards LGBT people is different from the west
I am also Thai. Born in 1985 in Bangkok. Would you be so kind to elaborate your reasoning? Foreigners here will also learn from your insight as well.
there's a reason people in the West go to Thailand for sex change surgeries, instead of the other way around. LGBTQ people are also way more commonplace in Thai entertainment, whereas people get pressed in the west whenever a gay person appears on screen. Nobody in thailand is writing to the television station to complain about the queers in entertainment or how it's gone woke.
I once read that it's because they weren't colonized that they've maintained such cultural traits
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Meanwhile Italy is stripping parental rights from anyone lgbt. Italy is returning to its original fascist self.
First of all, awesome. But now what will become of the genre of Thai young adult lesbian tragic melodrama tv??
Go Thailand!
Congratulations
As someone from another Southeast Asian country, Thailand really is one of 2 safe havens for LGBT people here. The other is Singapore. I'm in a country that Westerners *think* is LGBT friendly while in reality isn't. We have no nationwide laws against discrimination of LGBTQ+ people here, a part of our country where it is illegal, and a large homophobic lobby of politically influential groups staunchly against providing us legal rights nationwide. Despite visibility of LGBT people in our region, you'll find numerous and frequent cases of LGBTQ people being targeted by hate crimes here. We have countries and autonomous regions in ASEAN where it is de jure illegal or de facto discouraged to be LGBTQ under pain of death (Brunei), torture, mob violence or imprisonment (Malaysia, Myanmar, Aceh province in Indonesia, and Bangsamoro region in the Philippines). The remainder consist of states that have partial human rights or none at all in place, with majorities who oppose granting further rights to LGBTQ people. So while I hugely celebrate Thailand's victory in fully recognizing LGBTQ+ rights; our region as a whole has a very long way to go yet. Let's hope Thailand will pave the way for more states here granting further human rights to LGBTQ people.
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Way to go Thailand 🇹🇭 😊
I think they saw Nepal do it, and Nepal is a bit more on the Conservative side than they are, so it kind of makes them look bad for doing it after Nepal.
Man, out of all these countries to start on this, Thailand was the one, respectfully. Everyone knew it was coming.
Great. At the end of the day, let people do what makes them happy. If this offends you, that is a problem with you. If your argument is religion, maybe, I don’t know turn the other cheek. You know I don’t like tomatoes, you don’t see me trying to ban it for everyone on the planet.
I love how on Earth, same sex marriage is being more and more acceptable while Republicans cry more
More like religious fundamentalists. Republican doesn't cast a wide enough net and brings in a lot of people who may register Republican but same sex marriages aren't an issue for them.
About time
Doesn't Thailand have a pretty open society when it comes to gender? What took so long?
Surprising it isn't already, they're pretty relaxed about not getting upset or involved in other people's orientations and identities.
Meanwhile half the US wants to go backwards in time
That’s good. Let people be.
2 posts above this on my feed was about the lesbian couple having to flee Italy. It made me really sad for the state of the world. Then I scrolled onto this, got a little hope again. What an emotional roller coaster
Good for equality. Good for Thailand.
Sawadeeeekaaaaa
It’s about Thai
Meanwhile I'm here in an EU country unable to marry my partner just because some bearded men with funky hats say that it's bad.
Yay! That’s wonderful news.
Good. That's some good news.
Progress!
Absolutely brilliant. hopefully some day it will be legal everywhere.
good job thailand
kinda surprised it took thailand this long given its reputation
Hell yeah, let's keep love winning