Thailand’s monarch has officially signed into law a bill that recognizes same-s*x unions, making the country the first in South East Asia to do so.
This bill, which passed the Senate in June 2024, needed the royal signature to become official.
It was officially published in the Royal Gazette on Tuesday, September 24, and is set to take effect on January 22, 2025.
Activists celebrated this development as a historic milestone, marking the culmination of years of advocacy for marriage equality.
The new legislation employs gender-neutral terms instead of “husbands”, “wives”, “men”, and “women”, and also extends adoption and inheritance rights to same-s*x couples.
“Today we’re not only getting to write our names in marriage certificates, but we are also writing a page in history… that tells us that love never set a condition of who we were born to be,” Ann Chumaporn, a longtime LGBTQ+ activist and co-founder of the Bangkok Pride movement, told the BBC. “It’s a triumph of equality and human dignity.”
She said she plans to organise a mass wedding for more than 1,000 LGBTQ+ couples on 22 January.
“We are all delighted and excited. We’ve been fighting for our rights for over 10 years, and now it’s finally happening,” another activist, Siritata Ninlapruek, told AFP news agency.
Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra posted on X: “Congratulations on everyone’s love. #LoveWins.”
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