Thai same-sex marriage law comes into force – in pictures

A combination photo shows couples posing after registering their same-sex marriages in Bangkok. Dozens of couples married in Thailand on 23 January as the kingdom’s equal marriage law came into effect

Actors Apiwat ‘Porsch’ Apiwatsayree (left) and Sappanyoo ‘Arm’ Panatkool celebrate their marriage at the Phra Nakhon district office in Bangkok

Kwanporn Kongpetch (left) and Kwanporn Kongpetch show their marriage certificates. The new marriage law uses gender-neutral terms in place of ‘men’, ‘women’, ‘husbands’ and ‘wives’, also clearing the way for transgender people to wed, and grants adoption and inheritance rights to all married couples

Couples wait for their marriage certificates

Chayapa ‘June’ Rattanakewil and Thitapat ‘Pang’ Chainarongwir smile for the cameras

Dozens of couples attend a large hall in a shopping centre for a mass LGBTQ wedding organised by the campaign group Bangkok Pride and city authorities

Thailand ranks highly on indexes of LGBTQ legal and living conditions, and Thursday’s milestone makes it the first country in south-east Asia to allow equal marriage

The kingdom’s same-sex marriage bill was passed in a historic parliamentary vote last June, the third country in Asia to do so. The law came into effect 120 days after it was ratified by King Maha Vajiralongkorn

Kevin Pehthai Thanomkhet, 30, and Nathicha Klinthaworn, 39, receive official marriage certificates

Ruchaya Nillakan (left) and Nuttimon Sanyamast get wed

Ploynaplus Chirasukon and Kwanporn Kongpetch celebrate

Wasana liamyongyai (left) and Niramol Pongkan enjoy the day

Couples attend a marriage registration event in Bangkok. The former Thailand prime minister Srettha Thavisin, who attended Wednesday’s mass wedding event, took an apparent swipe at the newly inaugurated US president, Donald Trump, who on Monday decreed there were only two genders. ‘Recently a country’s leader said that there were only two genders, but I think we are more open-minded than that’

People wait for their certificates

Couples celebrate after they receive official marriage certificates. Thai activists have been campaigning for same-sex marriage rights for more than a decade, with their advocacy stalled by political turbulence in a country regularly upended by coups and mass street protests