Amazing progress. Hopefully the rest of Asia can follow suit in short order.

I met a number of LGBTQ+ folks in China who were wonderful, honest people, but most of them were afraid to publicly display or talk about their sexuality/gender identities due to the risk of social/legal reprisal, given the deteriorating state of policies towards LGBTQ+ rights in recent years.

While other countries in East/Southeast Asia have begun to open up to the idea of same-sex marriage like Taiwan in 2019 and now Thailand, a lot in China see this as a symptom of growing westernization to be opposed. Logic being that if the westernized countries who we don’t like start to embrace the idea, we should reject it. And unfortunately a lot of Asia follows China’s lead in particular.

Wonderful news 🥰 It is sad that some countries are going the other direction right now with their laws (such as Poland and Italy), but I really do believe we are on a slow but steady track to global marriage equality.

Thailand has been so weird the last couple of years.

Super-pro tourism and foreign investment (ie. Russians pouring in in tens of thousands).

Legalising weed (more dispensaries than 7-11s or Starbucks combined).

Now reversing that?

Now legalising same sex marriage.

it’s like they’re opening up in an ultra-capitalist way. “What is the most left way to make money?”

This is a very cynical POV, and is not accurate. But it looks that way. It’s only an issue as these movements make the country vulnerable to economic exploitation.

To clarify what this has in common: there’s a LOT of money to be made in weddings, and they’ve just made the country even more of a wedding tourism destination. (on top of domestic wedding spending)

All that said, for this topic specifically: good for them. this is fantastic news.