This article in the NY Daily News states that oppressed gays are frequently finding refuge in Bangkok. Other than having to leave their homes to live in a foreign country where they may not know anyone or speak the language, what's not right with this idea?

 

The article focuses first on a transgendered person, but goes on to speak of others in the LGBT spectrum. I'm wondering how true it is. Any opinions, or do you know anyone who has moved to Bangkok to get away from oppression in their home country?

 

Here's the link:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/gay-asians-fleeing-repressive-countries-find-refuge-article-1.2179632

"Fleeing" would be a bit of an exaggeration.  But I do know several guys from the provinces who have moved to Bangkok to 'disappear' as they have vowed never to go home again.  One, let's call him Joe, is 35 and had a good job as a university lecturer in his hometown.  He was supporting his elderly mother and his bum of an older brother who was a 'freelance' something or other.  Joe is effeminate and quite camp.  Brother resented him for being the one with the backbone despite his effeminacy and would beat him when he couldn't get more money from Joe or whenever he was drunk and wanted to use someone as a punching bag.  Joe's mother wouldn't do anything about it because the brother was her flesh and blood too.  Friends and neighbours didn't want to get involved; even the local police felt it was an internal family matter.  They  laughed it off and advised him to take up martial arts and become more 'manly' so that he could defend himself against his brother.  The beatings were getting really bad and Joe had to skip work often.  He used to come to stay with us in Bangkok when things became unbearable.  After much persuasion, he finally mustered the resolve to leave his mother and his town.  He lived in Bangkok for a year and then found a job down south and moved there.  He's quite happy there.  He still sends his mother money every month.  The last I heard from him, he was applying for a job to teach Thai at a Korean university.

 

The article says "Bangkok has become one of the destinations for migrating LGBT Asians because of a civil partnership law."  When did this happen?  I thought the draft bill in Parliament last year was stalled and nothing has been heard of it since.  Where did the writer of this article get his information from - OUT!?

 

And before all that lofty talk of civil partnerships, we might want to give legal recognition to fully transitioned transgenders first. Transgendered Thais who have had gender affirmation surgery still can't have their sex change reflected in their ID cards and passports and those who travel abroad often have to face very awkward questions at immigration counters, among a myriad other legal and social problems.  The only Southeast Asian country that gives legal recognition to fully transitioned transgenders is Singapore, since 1996 I believe.

 

To me, this article was really about foreign NGOs in Bangkok in another example of "we see but we don't SEE in Thailand".  What I mean by this is that you can do what you want as long as you keep to the fringe or space that we've allocated to you and don't interfere with mainstream Thai life and society.  In fact, Thailand is one of the easiest countries for foreign NGOs to set up shop with very little red tape involved and they are free to run their own little fiefdoms as long as they play ball with whoever owns the pitch at the moment.  Their activists fill up our trendy bars and restaurants and keep our luxury condo owners happy.  So these NGOs pitch their designer tents here BUT, do you see a single Thai name among the activists who spoke or anywhere in the article at all? No.