Reinventing Sexual Identities: Thai Gay Men’s Pursuit of Social Acceptance

Abstract

This paper presents an analytical investigation of Thailand’s gender normative homosexuals’ refashioning of their sexual identities. It is intended to examine how the emergence of modern homosexual identities in Thailand could be a resulted of the interplay between Western discourses of sexuality and Thai sex/gender system. Although gay is often seen as a cultural import from the West, its application in Thai contexts reveals the hybridisation of the Thai sex/gender system and Western discourses of sexuality. Thai homosexual men’s adoption of gay and subsequently chairakchai underscores their constant redefinition and reconstruction of their sexual identities within Thai heteronormative frameworks.