A year is coming to a close, and it has been quite a good one for the LGBT community worldwide, so to speak. More countries and states are starting to legalise same-sex marriage — a sign of more acceptance and understanding from the public. Though that list still has yet to include Thailand, the movements by Thai gender activists are ongoing, and we wait for the day everyone can stand proudly and equally next to one another regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity.
And marriage is not the only thing on the list. Happening incidents and law shifts are what mixed things up in the LGBT movements. Here's a look back at some of what went on in the gender-diversity world — both the memorable and those that perhaps should be forgotten.
Gaspard Ulleil plays Yves Saint Laurent in Bertrand Bonello’s Saint Laurent.
Onscreen dilemma
It has been quite an interesting year for films featuring non-straight characters both onshore and off. And the first to mention should really go to Saint Laurent and Yves Saint Laurent, two biopics about the same late French designer. Saint Laurent, being unsupported by the couture house, has been selected as France's entry for the 87th Academy Awards' Best Foreign Language Film category.
1448 Love Among Us, a Thai lesbian drama starring Apinya Sakuljaroensuk and Isabella Lete.
Other worthy mentions are Pride, a British comedy drama that won the Queer Palm award at this year's Cannes Film Festival, and The Imitation Game, a British-American film about the gay mathematical genius Alan Turing, which stars Benedict Cumberbatch.
Onshore, the LGBT scene in Thai films has always been somewhat quiet. In recent years, aside from teen dramas Love Of Siam and Yes Or No, there hasn't really been any pro-LGBT Thai films which fared well, both at the box office and in the public's eye.
This year, we had the lesbian drama 1448 Love Among Us, which is pretty much a Thai version of the American-made If These Walls Could Talk 2. The film was only able to garner praise from gender activists for portraying LGBT issues on the big screen. It was, like many other non-GTH Thai films, a box office flop. Later this month, a new Satree Lek (The Iron Ladies) film, a remake of the 2000 biopic based on a real-life katoey volleyball team, will grace the cinema. However, judging from its choice of cast members and trailer, the film already seems like another exploitation flick that depicts rainbow ladies and non-straight crowds as a laughing stock — a phenomenon this country still, disappointingly, considers the norm.
Indecent exposure
Earlier last month, a video clip surfaced online featuring a tomboy and a girl getting chastised by a woman for kissing on the BTS. The girl remains silent throughout the clip while the tomboy has a few verbal exchanges with the woman who objected to such public display of affection. She was in an outrage that the two went against the goodness and morality of Thai culture. At the end, a katoey passenger nearby also jumped into the conversation and told the couple: "This is not a hotel. This is the BTS."
Considering that the clip only includes the showdown between the two parties and not how the so-called indecent kiss actually went, it is difficult to judge this situation without being biased. Many comments online said the couple deserved to be yelled at, while others said the woman overreacted.
If anything, this clip raised questions about Thai people's level of tolerance and prejudice against public displays of affection. Would the situation have been different if it was a man and a woman kissing, instead of two females? Would it have made a difference if the two weren't Thai?
Kissing in public is a normal practice in Western culture. For our conservative culture, however, it is a no-no. Having two females (or two males) kissing each other in public would have brought down the sky, as it did for this couple. It is not wrong to show one's affection for another, but perhaps being a little more discrete would help.
Baby blues
Gays and lesbians want to have children. Surrogacy, IVF and other artificial insemination technologies are now available to make a lot of people's dream of building a family come true. For gay men, a surrogate is sometimes the only solution.
In September, a woman claimed she had unknowingly carried a child for a gay couple. When she found out, she feared for the unborn twins — that they would be raised in a gay family. She intended to keep the children, even though they bore no blood-relation to her. Alas, she — and the gay couple — lost the children when she gave birth prematurely.
When the story broke, many people praised the woman for intending to keep the children. They said she was kind and it would be a shame — as well as violating the children's rights — to be born into a gay family. This shows the negative attitude people have towards families that deviate from a male father, a female mother and their lovely children. Anything out of the "ordinary" is not tolerated.
Law and order
Partly propelled by the surrogacy case, Thailand's surrogacy bill passed its first hearing in the National Legislative Assembly last month. With the bill saying that surrogacy would only be allowed for lawfully wedded couples, unmarried couples — and same-sex couples who can't be legally united — should rule out surrogacy as an option. But all is not lost as many still plan to go "underground" with the process and go ahead with their wish to start a family with their loved one anyway. The law — which arguably borderlines a human rights violation — doesn't seem to deter them.
One bill moves forward, while another disappointingly stays still. The civil partnership bill — which aims to enable civil partners to benefit from similar rights as married couples — is gaining attention from the public. However, that spark of interest seems to slowly fade away once there is other fascinating news.
Is equality too much to ask? Because that is what the LGBT community is asking for — that they have the same rights as other tax payers in Thailand, and not to be limited and suppressed by Article 1448, which states that only a male and a female above the age of 17 can be legally married.
With the civil partnership bill, same-sex couples will be entitled to more rights, including the right to sign medical consent forms for their partners in cases of emergencies, to appoint their significant others as direct beneficiaries for a life insurance policy and to receive social welfare if their partners work in government organisations.
When the law still refuses to accept and cater for people of different sexual orientation and gender identity, the community will remain unequal.
Locking on the closet's door
There is no such thing as coming out — waltzing briskly from a closet — as one may believe. To get out of the safe, claustrophobic haven, sometimes you just need to break the door down and wait either for cheers or criticism to be thrown at you for tearing apart the close-minded, conservative barriers.
In 2014, there have been many famous names from different fields who decided to tell the world that they were gay and happy. From Apple's Tim Cook to Australian politician Don Harwin, swimmer Ian Thorpe and actress Ellen Page, putting the truth out there is both encouraging and inspirational. And the world celebrates with them, for the most part.
But there are also many who don't get why we celebrate when people stop trying to be who they're not and decide to own it. Having famous people taking a stand and tell the world who they are provides encouragement to others who are still trapped in their closets.
The act itself is like telling fellow non-heterosexuals not to be afraid — that they're not alone. To other "normal" people, it's like showing them that gays can be great and successful as well, and that most people should just deal with it.
