Anjaree Group Historic Site

Anjaree Group was founded in Bangkok in 1986 by activist Anjana Suvarnananda as Thailand's first dedicated lesbian rights organisation. It preceded any comparable Southeast Asian organisation by more than a decade and produced the earliest published Thai-language literature on lesbian identity — including the 1993 book *Anjaree*, from which the group takes its name, and which was the first Thai-language book to discuss lesbian identity openly. The organisation's early years operated from Anjana Suvarnananda's Charoen Krung Road apartment, which functioned through the 1990s as an unofficial meeting hub for the network of Thai lesbian and bisexual women that Anjaree convened. The organisation formalised as a non-profit in 1997 and continued through the 2000s to run counselling, publishing, and legal-advocacy work. Anjaree's political achievements include the successful 1999 campaign that removed homosexuality from Thai psychiatric diagnostic classifications; the 2001 workplace-discrimination guidelines adopted by Thai federal ministries; and the campaign that produced Thailand's 2007 constitutional protection of gender identity. The founding lineage led directly to the 2024 Marriage Equality Law that took effect in 2025 — Southeast Asia's first. Anjaree Group is currently dormant but its archive is held at the Chulalongkorn University Library and its historical significance is acknowledged by the two subsequent Thai LGBTQ+ organisations — Anjaree Alliance and the Rainbow Sky Association of Thailand. The Charoen Krung address itself carries no formal plaque; the site is worth a slow walk for readers who know its significance. Combine with a walk to Silom Soi 4 (15 minutes) for a Bangkok queer heritage half-day.