Article by: Sanjana Ganesh

Edited by: Kamakshi Gupta

Visual by: Sanjana Ganesh

As of May 24, 2019, Taiwan became the first Asian country to legally recognize same-sex unions. That’s one Asian country where LGBTQ+ marriages are legalized! What year is it now? 2023. And how many Asian countries recognize same-sex marriages now? Still just one. Yes, even after four whole years, Taiwan is still the only one – out of forty-eight Asian countries – where LGBTQ+ marriages are legal (Huang). 

Despite this lack of action, recently the countries of Nepal and Israel have been making progress. During the beginning of May, the Nepali supreme court ordered the government to start legally recognizing LGBTQ+ marriages. According to Kyle Knight, a senior LGBTQ+ rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, Nepal is already known to be one of the countries in which LGBTQ+ activity is widely accepted and recognized (Driscoll). In Israel, they have repealed anti-homosexuality laws starting 1988, which had originally been implemented by British law back in 1948. LGBTQ+ couples now have equal access to medical services as heterosexual couples do, have less chances of getting hate-crimed due to society’s progressiveness, more representation in the media, and more incorporation of LGBTQ+ activities in Israeli culture (“Life For LGBT People”). Although the progress in acceptance and rights of LGBTQ+ couples in these two countries is a step forward, both of them must still consistently work towards legalizing same-sex unions. On the other hand, in countries such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Malaysia, and Indonesia, any LGBTQ+ activity is strictly criminalized. Same-sex couples or homosexual-identifiying individuals could face imprisonment or other forms of violent punishments, such as whipping, if they were to publicly reveal their identity (“Map of Countries”). These countries have the longest road to take towards legalizing same-sex marriages, as they must legalize identifying LGBTQ+ first and provide them with the medical and social rights that heterosexual couples have access to. 

Now let’s talk about the irony. “Boys’ Love” or “BL” is a genre originating from Japan that portrays romantic relationships between males. In certain Asian countries, especially Thailand or even Japan and Korea, BL content has rapidly risen in popularity over the past couple of years. After gaining international recognition, producers from these countries couldn't help but put out more BL content in the entertainment media (De Guzman). Although such content is beneficial to the economy of these countries, particularly Thailand, the government still fails to recognize LGBTQ+ couples and give them rights in real life. [SPOILER] In the Thai BL series Cutie Pie, the main couple, Lian Kilen Wang and Kuea Keerati, discuss how they cannot legally be recognized as a married couple on paper. However, despite this challenge, they decide to stray away from reality and go through with a wedding ceremony towards the end of the series. Although there is sort of a happy ending, it leaves us with the realization that even a country which portrays high amounts of LGBTQ+ content on TV does not want to give actual LGBTQ+ citizens their rights. In a YouTube video titled “BL Actor Answers Your Questions About Thai BL Industry,” BL actor Perth Nakhun Screaigh – who played a supporting character in the Cutie Pie series himself – states “In a lot of recent BLs, even though they’re set in Thailand, in the world of that BL series gay marriage and gay relationships are totally normal… they just ignore real life and say ‘yeah this is how the world should be,’ which it should, so hopefully it can translate to real life sometime very very soon.”

LGBTQ+ marriage has been fully legalized in one Asian country so far while a few others are currently taking steps towards legalizing it. Some countries seem to remain idle when it comes to speaking up about the LGBTQ+ community while others attack members of the community head-on, stripping their rights away and condemning them due their sexual orientation. In spite of the fact that we are making slow progress, we must keep fighting for LGBTQ+ rights, not just in Asia, but in all countries around the world that still don’t accept same-sex couples and unions.