Thailand has taken a significant step towards equality by legalizing same-sex marriage on January 23, 2025. This decision makes Thailand the first country in Southeast Asia to recognize marriage equality, joining Taiwan and Nepal as the third nation in Asia to pass such legislation.
Hundreds of same-sex couples tied the knot across Thailand on Thursday, the 23rd January 2025 as the country became the first in Southeast Asia to legally recognize equal marriage.
Members of the LGBTQ community walk on a rainbow carpet at a marriage registration event at Paragon shopping mall in Bangkok on January 23, 2025. Almost 2,000 same-sex and transgender couples married in Thailand on January 23 as the kingdom’s equal marriage law went into effect in a first for Southeast Asia.
According to Bangkok Pride, which partnered with local authorities to organize the event, over 200 couples registered to marry at the Siam Paragon shopping center. This bill marks a major victory for the LGBTQ community, which has spent more than a decade advocating for equal marriage rights.
The law, approved by Thailand’s parliament and endorsed by the king in 2024, grants same-sex couples the ability to legally register their marriages, offering them full legal, financial, and medical rights, as well as adoption and inheritance rights.
Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said in a recorded message played at a mass wedding in the capital Bangkok on Thursday: “This marriage equality law marks the beginning of Thai society’s greater awareness of gender diversity, and our embrace of everyone regardless of sexual orientation, race, or religion — our affirmation that everyone is entitled to equal rights and dignity.”
Shinawatra hailed the legalization of same-sex marriage as a historic milestone for equality and inclusion. She celebrated the LGBTQIA community’s decades-long struggle for marriage equality, calling it a “collective achievement from everyone’s efforts.”
Sharing a post on X, she wrote, “23 January 2025 – the day of Love Triumphant! More than two decades of fighting to pass the #MarriageEquality law, and two decades of confronting prejudices and societal values, have finally brought us to this day. This victory is a collective achievement from everyone’s efforts, especially the LGBTQIA community, who led the movement to bring marriage equality into effect. Today, the rainbow flag is proudly flying over Thailand.”
As per other stories from reliable news agencies: “When Thailand’s long-awaited equal marriage law came into effect on Thursday, police officer Pisit “Kew” Sirihirunchai hoped to be among the first in line to marry his long-term partner Chanatip “Jane” Sirihirunchai.
And he was – they were the sixth couple to register their union at one of Bangkok’s grandest shopping malls, in an event city officials helped organize to celebrate this legal milestone.
Hundreds of couples across Thailand received marriage certificates on Thursday, breaking into smiles or tearing up over the moment they had dreamed of for so long. It was a pageant of colors and costumes as district officials hosted parties with photo booths and free cupcakes – one Bangkok district was giving air tickets to the first couple who registered their marriage there.
“The rainbow flag is flying high over Thailand,” Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra wrote on Facebook from Davos where she is attending the World Economic Forum.
Activists said they were hoping to cross the 1,448-mark for registrations by the end of Thursday – 1448 is the clause in the Thai Civil Code covering the definition of marriage.”We have been ready for such a long time,” Pisit said. “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 formalize their relationship, they had previously been to a Buddhist monk to give them an auspicious new last name they can share – Sirihirunchai. They had also asked local officials to issue a letter of intent, which they both signed, pledging to get married.
But they said having their partnership recognized under Thai law is what they had been waiting for: “This is perfect for us. The law that protects our rights.” ‘A long fight full of tears’: Now Thailand has become a haven for LGBT couples.
Until now, official documents listed Pisit and Chanatip as brothers. That way they could be a family in the eyes of the law. A marriage certificate 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 also 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.”
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