“To Stride with Pride: A Human Rights Movement in Thailand” is a video about those who are diligently striving toward attaining civic equity and societal equality.
With a blending of seriousness and light-heartedness, this documentary brings you to the lively streets of Chiang Mai during the 2020 Chiang Mai Pride parade, when hundreds of people came together to stand up for human rights.
It wasn’t just the LGBTQI community, but also those from other marginalised societal groups such as sex workers, those who are disabled (other-abled), and indigenous peoples, came together in solidarity.
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The Chiang Mai Pride has a long and dark history, having been first organised in 2009 in a gathering which ended in notoriety. A mob of culturally traditional locals, propelled by then-violent local politics, who vehemently disapproved of LGBT people and their civil rights movement, blockaded, threatened, and forcefully stopped them from continuing with that event. The incident shook the local LGBTQI community and it wasn’t until 2019, ten years later, that they reenergised and organised a parade attended by thousands and lauded for its success In this bi-lingual (subtitled) video, Thailand’s iconic LGBT and human rights activist, Sirisak ‘Ton’ Chaited, shares thoughts on some of the challenges this demographic community faces.
This documentary is produced by Jeffrey Warner, a long- and some-time resident of Chiang Mai.
