Chayangurn Ardam

Chayangurn, who helps run the Telephone Pub on Bangkok's Silom Soi 4, a popular meeting place for gay men, is candid about who he is.

He talks openly about early sexual encounters with men, but says it wasn't until his parents divorced that his own feelings began to evolve.

He took his mother's side in the break-up - they were very tightly bonded - and in the process he somehow ended up being ill at ease with other women. Every time he had sex with a woman, "I felt like I was having sex with my mum."

The resulting sense of guilt edged him into sex with prostitutes instead and, at age 20, with men.

He finally realised he was gay five years later, but there remained the fact that his strict Chinese family had arranged a marriage for him with a girl he'd known since childhood.

He decided to be honest and told her there was no way.

Some gay men do marry women, Chayangurn knows. They feel the social pressure, comply, and pay the price - such marriages don't work out, he believes.

"It can work if you have children, but that's only because of the man's sense of responsibility. I can assure you that the sex will not be normal."

Chayangurn didn't feel the need to tell anyone he was gay, including his family, but he thinks most people already knew anyway.

Acceptance, however, is a whole different matter.

"Gays are becoming common in society, so there's less criticism, but those who really accept us are still in the minority."

He sees it at Telephone, where the clientele often includes straight men.

"Lots of straight guys today come to party at the gay pubs. That's real acceptance of our culture."

Thailand, he confirms, leads other Asian countries in tolerating homosexuality, but Germany is even further ahead. Gays there are allowed to marry, and transgender people have no problem changing their legal status from mister to missus.

Thailand is relatively open-minded, but Chayangurn complains that it's difficult here finding a long-lasting gay relationship.

"One-night stands are easy to find, but there are few men who have found long-term relationships. With technology and neat places to meet, though, gay men can more readily interact and discover each other."

Anjana Suvarnananda

 The founder of the lesbian support group Anjaree, Anjana wants equal rights - for everyone. She worked with the Astrea Lesbian Foundation for Justice in Europe and came back to Thailand determined to make a difference here.

She helped revitalise the Ying Rak Ying (Women Who Love Women) group for the Pride Festival.

Unlike Chayan-gurn, Anjana believes that being gay has nothing to do with genetics or upbringing. For her it's simply as natural for people to be homosexual as to be heterosexual.

"We're living in a heterosexist society, where we're forced to believe that the only normal relationship is with the opposite sex."

The male-female relationship has become culture rather than nature. It's registered in the broader consciousness that that's the only way to be.

"If people think there must be a reason for becoming gay, then what's the reason for becoming heterosexual?" she asks.

The rationale of reproduction is just old hat, she says. 

Anjana discovered at 14 that she was attracted to women.

She tried hard to love a man, but couldn't ignore the appeal of woman - it actually created "this buzz in my stomach", she says.

She had a girlfriend at her all-girls school, as did many of her classmates, but most of the relationships broke up when everyone moved on to co-educational universities.

"My girlfriend was pressured to get married. Her parents broke up our relationship." The marriage ended in divorce.

Meanwhile, Anjana, heartbroken, helped found the Anjaree group, and it opened a post-office box to give other lesbians a place to express themselves. The overwhelming response was, perhaps not surprising. "I thought I was the only one."

Anjana sees Europe and North America as being more open to discussing sexual preference and sexism, even if general public acceptance is elusive.

In Thailand, she believes, lesbians are satisfied that they're accepted, but still lack certain rights and privileges.

"Actually, we've accepted to be silent."

Given less attention than gays, they have a more difficult time.

"There is more of a burden on women," Anjana says. "Gays have more freedom and are able to move into higher social positions."

The Internet and its chat rooms have given lesbians a platform for open discussion, but Anjana frets that this is just a cop-out.

"They make this big noise on the Internet, but keep silent in public. They don't inform other people, so they don't contribute to the understanding about the community."

Anjana speaks out in public. She talks to schoolteachers, reminding them that their students might develop feelings for the same sex and gives them advice on handling it.

She's also part of the bigger fight to change a law that sees transgender people who are exempted from military service labelled "psychotic" in official documents. It's a tragic misunderstanding that sometimes hampers their careers, Anjana says.

Anjana doesn't foresee outright emancipation for lesbians in her lifetime, but is optimistic for the future.

"People are breaking free from this. The heterosexists try to control everything, but now they're losing control of society.

"We're not asking for these rights just for lesbians and gays, but for every human being."