Anjaree
Anjaree was an LGBT rights organization in Thailand. It formed as a lesbian organization in 1986 and has focused on issues such as reforming the words used to refer to same sex desire and campaigning for same [sex marriage] to be legally recognised. It became dormant around 2015.
History
Anjaree was formed originally in 1986 by a small group of lesbian feminist activists, which included Anjana Suvarnananda and Chanthalak Raksayu. The organization articulated lesbian issues in the women's movement in Thailand and the society at large. Suvarnananda was inspired by her experiences studying in the Netherlands. Anjaree organizers were among the first to organize and host an Asian Lesbian Network in 1990, which gained international attention, especially throughout Asia. Successes included stopping the Rajabhat Institute's discriminatory rules on banning transgender people from enrollment at its institute during 1996 and publicizing the decision by the Ministry of Health not to class homosexuality as a pathological condition. The group then became dormant around 2015.Anjaree has long campaigned for recognition of same sex marriage in Thailand as in other Asian countries such as Taiwan. In 2019, a legal challenge was made to the Civil and Commercial Code. Anjana Suvarnananda commented to the Thomson Reuters Foundation that if it the challenge failed, there was a "risk that the outdated notion of marriage will persist for a while".