In a significant boost to recognizing transgender people’s rights, the Thai government announced this week that it will invest 145 million baht (US$4.3 million) in providing hormone therapy to transgender people.
Thailand has a growing international reputation for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights, especially since it passed marriage equality last year. The country is also a global hub for gender-affirming surgery and transgender health care. Still, these developments obscure the severely limited legal means available to protect transgender people’s basic rights.
For example, the absence of a legal gender recognition procedure in Thailand means that all transgender people carry documents with a gender different from their identity and expression. When transgender people are asked for this documentation, such as at a hospital, during a police check, or when opening a bank account, they often face humiliation and rejection.
In a 2021 report, nearly all interviewees who told Human Rights Watch they had taken hormones to affirm their gender identity said they started those medications without guidance from healthcare providers. They said they relied on the advice of friends or senior community members—not healthcare providers—to decide on type and dosage for at least part of the time they used hormones. This disturbing finding was confirmed by academic studies and United Nations research. This was, in part, due to the failure of the Thai healthcare system to provide accessible and adequate hormone replacement therapy treatment for transgender people.
The government’s new investment in hormone therapy will bring positive change, as should the law. In recent years, the Thai government has begun to engage with civil society organizations and UN agencies to develop a legal gender recognition procedure. But the process has stalled, and draft legislation is languishing.
Thailand has meanwhile declared its desire to host World Pride in the coming years. This will be a well-deserved moment for the government to celebrate its LGBT rights progress, if it prioritizes passing a rights-based legal gender recognition law now.
