First, below, you find the pressrelease of this years pride, in which is a summary of some of the stereotyping about the GLBT community by the general Thai public... it also explains why, also in general, Thai gays etc tend to behave the way we generally see them behave!
There's a lot to fight for here in Thailand, even though most farang, visitors/tourist who come to Thailand might think their GLBT counterparts here have a relative better acceptance here then in most of our home countries.
Though on the surface it may look that way, below that surface Thai society is not much different from most societies in the world.
There's much more to say about this, and maybe we will re-post the weblog-entry we made early December .... But first this years statement!;-)
The program of the Phuket Pride is relative quite one-sided... most find it difficult to speak out about GLBT rights, etc. ... its not the most Thai thing to do... but when aroused, Thai can be very strong-headed.
The only thing we farang can do, is observe and watch how the general GLBT situation and the Pride develops....
We may be able to support BUT its the Thai GLBT community which has to do it, in the way they think best.
To give them more power to dtake these steps, we can only support them, make them feel not alone. Show them how in all our respective countries our GLBT community has developed, for better or for worse, so they can learn from us ... and as such, who knows, in the end Thai society as a whole might benefit from the lessons we all learned elsewhere and by doing so same time finding a Thai solution to a lot of the GLBT issues.
A very interesting progress to witness... and as such our presence and support will be needed, how much comments we might have about how they go about things.
As a consequence we at Backstage have the intention to facilitate some discussions and lectures during the next Gay Pride, if the community appreciates and desires it.... this 2011 Pride was somewhat too early for us in that respect so we did the next best thing by sponsoring this years Pride.
The few activities we organize, do this year, are shown on the left hand of the program as shown below.
One thing is for sure though THAI KNOW HOW TO PARTY!! So enjoy this years Pride to the fullest,
but when here, take time to talk to fellow GLBT Thai... might be quite enlightning ;-)
The Pride Parade 2011
Ofcourse what's a Pride without a Parade in which the GLBT community shows the outside world that they are proud to be who they are, when they can dress up, party and make fun and show in their respective ways that they are proud to be gay!
For the first time we as Backstage will do our utmost best to show a somewhat decent presence in this Parade ... and am very curious how it will look like, lol, because 'we' farang will only be present as 'decoration', as attributions to what our Thai friends feel they can and want to express!
Let us know, farang or Thai, about your experiences of this years pride, we will happily share them ;-)
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