Thailand legalises same-sex marriage in historic move

As Thailand’s long-awaited equal marriage law comes into effect on Thursday, police officer Pisit “Kew” Sirihirunchai hopes to be the first in line to marry his long-term partner Chanatip “Jane” Sirihirunchai.

Some 180 same-sex couples are registering their unions at one of Bangkok’s grandest shopping malls, in an event city officials helped organise to celebrate this legal milestone.

“We have been ready for such a long time,” Pisit says. “We have just been waiting for the law to catch up and support us.”

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 – Sirihirunchai. They have also asked local officials to issue a letter of intent, which they both signed, pledging to get married.

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.

They can make decisions about medical treatment if their partner becomes ill and incapacitated, or extend financial benefits – such as Pisit’s government pension – to their spouse.

“We want to build a future together – build a house, start a small business together, maybe a café,” he adds, making a list of all that the law has enabled. “We want to build our future together and to take care of each other.”

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: “They should feel emboldened because they can see us coming out with no repercussions, only positive responses.”

As a younger couple Prisit and Chanatip – both in their mid-30s – have experienced fewer obstacles than those who came out much earlier.

But for their community, it has been a long journey. Despite Thailand’s famed tolerance towards LGBTQ+ people, activists say it took a sustained campaign to win legal recognition.

“We’ve been waiting for this day for 18 years – the day everyone can recognise us openly, when we no longer need to be evasive or hide,” says 59-year-old Rungtiwa Thangkanopast, who will marry her partner of 18 years in May.

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’s death began spending time, and later helping run, one of the first lesbian pubs in Bangkok. Then she met Phanlavee, who’s now 45 and goes by her first name only.

On Valentine’s Day 2013 the two women went to the Bang Rak district office in central Bangkok to ask to be officially married – a popular place for marriage registration because the name in Thai means “Love Town”.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Their message resonated with Thais – 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.

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.

And couples like Rungtiwa and Phanleeva now have their chance to have their love for each other recognised, without the risk of public derision.

“With this law comes the legitimacy of our family,” Rungtiwa says, “We’re no longer viewed as weirdos just because our daughter isn’t being raised by heterosexual parents.”

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.

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..

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.

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.

“I really hope people will put away the old, stereotypical ideas that gay men cannot 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 proved that we genuinely love each other through thick and thin for more than 20 years,” Chakkrit says.”We have been ready to take care of each other since our first day together. We are no different from heterosexual couples.”

While Chakkrit’s parents quickly accepted their partnership, it took Prinn’s parents seven years before they could do so.

The couple also wanted to share the production business they ran together, and other assets, as a couple, so they asked Prinn’s parents to adopt Chakkrit officially, giving him the same family name. Prinn says the new law has brought welcome legal clarity to them.

“For example, right now when a same sex couple buy something together – a large item – they cannot share ownership of it,” said Prinn. “And one of us passes away, what both have us have earned together cannot be passed on to the other. That’s why marriage equality is very significant.”

Today, says Prinn, both sets of parents treat them as they would just like any other married children.

And when they had relationship problems like any other couple, their parents helped them.

“My dad even started reading gay magazines to understand me better. It was quite cute to see that.”

Additional reporting by Thanyarat Doksone and Ryn Jirenuwat in Bangkok