Thailand’s first cohort of transgender MPs make parliamentary history

Transgender people appear in commercials, movies and on the front pages of fashion magazines in Thailand. They even have their own beauty contest

But campaigners say tolerance of the LGBT community is not matched by understanding or opportunity in public life

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Transgender Future Forward Party member of parliament and actress Tanwarin Sukkhapisit. Photo: AFP

Published: 4:47pm, 6 Jun 2019Updated: 11:32pm, 6 Jun 2019

Smiling broadly, Tanwarin triumphantly cast her vote for prime minister as one of the first transgender MPs in Thailand, where tolerance for the LGBT community is not matched by understanding or opportunity in public life.

In a sign of that enduring gap, the elderly speaker called for “Mr Tanwarin” to come forward in a vote late on Wednesday that saw former junta chief Prayuth Chan-ocha elected prime minister with the help of a bank of 250 appointed senators.

Future Forward Party MP Tanwarin Sukkhapisit (centre) in parliament. Photo: AFP

Tanwarin Sukkhapisit, a lawmaker for the progressive anti-junta Future Forward Party (FFP), is one of four transgender MPs in the house – pioneers in a society where discrimination in education, employment and at home persists.

“I am not here for decoration,” she said. “I want to write a new political history for Thailand.”

Thailand’s transgender community enjoys a high profile, but still faces major hurdles in the conservative Buddhist-majority kingdom.