How Bangkok Became Asia's Most Welcoming City for LGBTQ+ Travelers

Once marginalized, Bangkok’s LGBTQ+ culture now flourishes in the spotlight.

There may be no country in Asia friendlier to LGBTQ people than Thailand.

Last summer, after the Thai parliament voted in favor of becoming the first country in Southeast Asia to legalize same-sex marriage, “I Will Survive” blared in the streets of Bangkok during Pride. And one of Bangkok's most exclusive hotels, the Siam, welcomed the producers of Getaway, a “boys’ love” series — a wildly popular TV genre in Asia — to film on its idyllic property. These days, transgender actors and business leaders are celebrated. It seems clear that Bangkok’s LGBTQ scene is not the tawdry affair it used to be.

In 2022, my husband and I were holed up at a friend’s beachfront villa on Koh Samui. When it was time to leave, we faced a mandatory three-week quarantine if we wanted to return to our home in Hong Kong. We decided we may as well extend our stay. So we went to Bangkok and checked in to the Siam.

I had last visited the Thai capital three decades before, when queerness was ostracized and sex tourism was pervasive. After spending a month exploring the city on that most recent trip, I noticed that LGBTQ culture is no longer confined to the shadows, but is embraced as part of the cosmopolitan mix.

Gay life now reaches far beyond Silom, the nightlife district still known for its drag shows and cheap drinks at stalwarts like Telephone Pub, Stranger Bar, and DJ Station. There are burgeoning gay scenes near the Chatuchak Weekend Market, where the Thai fashion crowd flocks to the Fake Club, and in gentrified pockets of Chinatown, where the owners of the Teens of Thailand bar (the name refers to neighborhood gangs) have opened experimental venues that attract both queer and straight patrons. Their latest, called G.O.D., serves ice-cold martinis with uni and hay-smoked olives in a space designed to look like a cathedral.

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Progress can be seen in pop culture and corporate boardrooms, too. The stars of the boys’ love soap opera 2gether: The Series — Vachirawit Chivaaree and Metawin Opas-iamkajorn, better known as Bright and Win — appear on billboard ads for cell phones and beauty creams. The actor Nong Poy, dubbed “Thailand’s most beautiful transgender” person by the South China Morning Post, is so popular that her 2023 marriage was covered with a fanfare normally reserved for royalty.

And Jakkaphong Jakrajutatip, a transgender media mogul who bought the Miss Universe franchise for $20 million in 2022, is a celebrity in her own right.

I originally thought that my favorite Bangkok moment happened during that pandemic-era trip, when clubs required a negative COVID test and enterprising drag queens set up shop outside, charging $25 for the service — along with a drink and the best show in town.

But I realized, months later, that it took place in my room at the Siam, when I was watching Getaway and noticed that the first love scene between the two stars had been filmed in the very bed where I had slept. The only difference? Their underwear was way more vibrant.

A version of this story first appeared in the December 2024 issue of Travel + Leisure under the headline “Out on the Town.”