News Forum - LGBTQ+ community migrating Bangkok for freedom & fun’s sake

[Thaiger]

A Chinese real estate agent revealed the LGBTQ+ community is flocking to Bangkok to escape persecution and seek a new life that offers them more freedom. In 2019, 40 year old Owen Zhu’s real estate career was flourishing, with Chinese investors eagerly buying Bangkok properties, but the pandemic struck, halting travel and spending. Although Chinese buyers … …

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[LeReynard]

Homosexuality is legal in China, with the same age of consent (14) for homosexuals as for heterosexuals. Expressions of the LGBT type, remain as foreign in Thailand, as they are in China.

Gender reassignment is allowed in China, but I don't know how readily available it is. After surgery the transsexual receives anti-discrimination protections protecting women, as though biologically female. Furthermore marriage becomes legal for the transsexual, only after surgery.

Pre-operative transsexuals, including minors, are consistently subject to treatment as male by the authorities. It is also listed there as a mental disorder.

What is lacking in China, is not basic human rights, when you consider how gays are killed in parts of Africa. Same-sex couples in China, are unable to marry or adopt, and there are currently no explicit anti-discrimination protections, for either homosexuality or transgenderism, and certainly no hate crime laws.

 

Forced conversion therapy is illegal, although it is tolerated when it is voluntary, and China has announced that she has been deficient as regards social security for homosexuals.

You will note that social security is a bureaucratic thing, and Chinese civilization has been bureaucratic by orientation, ever since antiquity. Chinese attitudes, then, are that personal LGBT activity is fine, if it complies with bureaucracy. So it isn't really homophobia or transphobia. Just a cultural focus on sorting people into categories for management.

Because this piece contrasts Thailand to China, we might take note of similar situations. Homosexuality is legal, with an equal age of consent; gay marriage is not recognised; protection from discrimination is either not on the law books, or is widely ignored; sex change is allowed, but there is one interesting difference. In Thailand, kathoey cannot change legal information - even after receiving reassignment surgery.

Really, LGBT is deeply culture bound, and a product of assumptions and priorities found in WEIRD, and especially Anglosphere societies. Faced with Western ideas, new scientific evidence and the like, Asians adapt but don't behave exactly as Westerners.

[Poolie]

Very well put.

The sinophobes will be in an uproar!