Thailand’s elections took place on March 24th and while the fallout is messy and results are not yet clear, we do know that the country’s first ever transgender member of parliament has successfully been elected.
Filmmaker Tanwarin Sukkhapisit, who identifies as bisexual and transgender, was elected running in the upstart Future Forward party founded in 2018.
Tanwarin’s primary policy platform is improving the situation for LGBT individuals in Thailand.
Although Thailand is relatively open-minded when it comes to LGBT people, Thai laws still significantly hold gay and transgender people back.
For example, according to Jitsopin Narrasettapong, a Thai attorney, Thai law does not allow same-sex marriage and also prohibits LGBT couples from adopting.
Tanwarin said her entrance into politics was spurred after her 2010 movie Insects in the Backyard was banned due to what authorities called “moral indecency”.
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