Almost 2,000 same-sex and transgender couples married in Thailand on Thursday, January 23, as the kingdom's equal marriage law went into effect in a first for Southeast Asia.
The milestone sees Thailand become by far the biggest nation in Asia to recognize equal marriage, after Taiwan and Nepal. There were hugs and tears of joy at more than 800 district offices across the country where 1,754 same-sex couples had tied the knot by 4:30 pm local time, according to the Ministry of the Interior.
At Siam Paragon mall in downtown Bangkok, dozens of couples dressed in traditional and contemporary wedding outfits trickled into a large hall for a mass wedding organized by campaign group Bangkok Pride with city authorities. Officials helped the couples fill out marriage forms at rows of tables, an administrative step before they could collect their certificates.
The new marriage law uses gender-neutral terms in place of "men," "women," "husbands" and "wives," also clearing the way for transgender people to wed, and grants adoption and inheritance rights to all married couples.
"Today, the rainbow flag is proudly flying over Thailand," Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra posted on X.
Thailand ranks highly on recent indexes measuring public attitudes toward LGBTQ+ people, but matching legal structures were absent before the kingdom passed the same-sex marriage bill in a historic parliamentary vote last June. The law came into effect 120 days after it was ratified by King Maha Vajiralongkorn.
Thai activists have been pushing for same-sex marriage rights for more than a decade, with their advocacy stalled by political turbulence in a country regularly upended by coups and mass street protests.
Former Thai prime minister Srettha Thavisin, who attended Thursday's mass wedding event, took an apparent swipe at newly inaugurated US President Donald Trump, who on Monday decreed there were only two genders.
"Recently a country's leader said that there were only two genders, but I think we are more open-minded than that," Srettha said.
More than 30 countries have legalized marriage for all since the Netherlands became the first to allow same-sex unions in 2001. Thailand has long had an international reputation for tolerance of the LGBTQ+ community, and opinion polls reported in local media have shown overwhelming public support for equal marriage. But much of the Buddhist-majority kingdom retains traditional and conservative values and LGBTQ+ people say they still face barriers and discrimination in everyday life.