Fridae

This article is written in reponse to Douglas Sanders' column ''bangkok pride: together and more local'' published on November 13. Click here to read article.

"You mean, the extravaganza at Silom?," Yo, a 28-year-old Thai university lecturer exclaimed when asked if he had attended any of the Bangkok Pride festivities held early this month.

"I attended one of the events a few years ago. It's fun but I'm not sure if other people, I mean, the mainstream straight people truly get the point of it."

"What do you mean?" I urged.

"It's fun to see the colourful costumes and the outrageous street performances but I'm not sure if this is the way to convince mainstream society to accept gay people. What we are showing them in the parade does nothing but reinforce the negative perception people already have in their mind about gay people. So what's new?" asked Yo, who says he is out to his family and friends about his sexuality, but not at his office.

I told him that it's simply a kind of rally or 'street show' to remind the public that gay people exist, and that the spectacle of the participants' dramatic outfits is simply to draw people to the parade.

"I just wish they could come up with something more meaningful. Since the parade is usually full of half-naked men and gyrating marchers in freaky dress, how can that make others accept us based on that perception?" Yo asked.

For some local gay men and lesbians, the gay parade which is typically held on a Sunday annually since 1999 simply does not feature in their things-to-do list.

"It was held last week?" Pong, 32, an office worker, shouted, insisting he liked to see it.

He cited that many years ago, he and his friends would call each other up a day before and make it a point of meeting earlier to get a good spot on the streets.

So I made sure that he remembered the gay parade of Bangkok, and how it was not a three or four-hour long affair in other major cities since they do not close the street proper for the parade.

In Bangkok, the parade usually wraps up in less than an hour under the urging of police who would wave, whistle, and hurry marchers so as to not hold up the busy streets.

For Eddie, a young gay man who has just turned 21, he said that he had heard about the gay parade but was not motivated to see it himself. A frequent patron of a gay bar outside the popular gay district of Silom, he felt that he could not relate to the Silom scene nor to the parade.

"I saw some pictures from recent years. Most of them dress up like women and I do not like to dress like that. I think many look fine in the dress, but some of them look very scary. Really!"

When I asked Eddie if he knew why these gay people were motivated to join the parade in the street, he said, "I guess they just want to have fun?"

Pong once overheard his co-workers talking about the parade and the subject of the participants' choice of outfits came up. "They asked if the marchers were gay men who enjoyed dressing up as women, and if they had nothing to do than to show that off in the streets?"

He added that his colleagues might have thought that most of the marchers were bar workers or katoeys (a Thai word refers to transgenders).

Although Pong's office building is right in the center of Silom's gay scene, he says that the recent parade which he had forgotten about, is "something most local gay people wouldn't mind missing" as they do not feel any "pride" in the Pride events.