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I know gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgenders have almost no rights in Asia, but do you notice any change in your country?
In Korea, some entertainers / designers are openly gay, but they have no civil rights.
But I do notice slow progress, such as music videos and dramas touching the topic.
It will be still decades... but it's not as taboo anymore as it used to be.
How is it in other countries?
Here is a music video that beautifully explores the topic by K-Will:
Definitely not ok in Indonesia, you are very likely to get discrimination if you were openly gay in indonesia, there are however minority that are open minded enough to accept you.
There are few bars thats openly for gay but thats about it and i think Bali seems to be less discriminative, not so much in other islands since they're mostly populated by conservative population.
I would rather be Transgender in Thailand than in any other country in the world.
Israel, Nepal, Thailand, Philippines, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan all allows gay people to serve in the military.
Same sex activity is also legal in the next Asian countries...
Jordan, Bahrain, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Timor-Leste, Hong Kong, China, Mongolia and North Korea.
Yeah i was surprised too when i found out gay sex is legal in Jordan, Bahrain, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Indonesia and North Korea.
In the Philippines from my experience a lot of gays are open. They just live their lives and I think most people don't bother them. I think that's fine. You don't bother me and I don't bother you. Your business is your business.
I saw a lot of obviously gay friendly businesses in Thailand, a lot of the girls behind cash registers had adams apples, nobody cares.
I was mostly in urban areas though, I don't know about some of the really rural areas like Isan.
South Africa already legalised gay marriage yet most people do not accept gay marriages over there. Contrast that with Australia, most people do support gay marriage yet gay marriage is illegal there.
Back to the OP: some non muslim Asian countries will legalise gay marriages soon.
I don't know what legal rights they have, but it seems Taiwan is pretty progressive regarding gay rights. I've actually met a number of openly gay Taiwanese and Taipei has Asia's first gay pride parade. I get the feeling Taiwanese society is quite liberal in general. Japan is an interesting case, for a time homosexuality was not only pretty accepted but even celebrated...there are many poems, paintings.etc celebrating homosexual love in Japan. Even now I don't think there is that same hostility towards it as you find in those countries influenced by the Abrahamic religion, it's seen more as a curiosity, not that the prevalence of homosexuality (to my knowledge anyway) is a lot higher than the West.
Despite not being majority Muslim homosexuality or rather certain homosexual practices (at least male homosexuality, more specifically certain gay male acts) are against the law in Singapore, but I don't think the government is generally very militant about enforcing it. I wouldn't be surprised if these laws change, but gays basically have no rights there.
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