Australian academic is trying to preserve the story of Thailand's gay community
About 2,000 books, magazines, photo albums, video tapes, movie and audio CDs relating to homosexuals fill the small room that is the country's only library dedicated to documenting the local gay community.
Called the Thai Queer Resource Centre (TQRC), it was founded by Australian scholar Assoc Prof Peter Jackson with the aim of preventing the history and voice of the Thai GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender) community from erosion by the state.
"No official library in Thailand is collecting this material. Also, the police are out to destroy them. It's therefore essential that the Thai GLBT community, and researchers such as myself work together to save these important records of Thai queer history," explained Jackson, senior fellow in Thai history at the Australian National University's Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies.
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Called the Thai Queer Resource Centre (TQRC), it was founded by Australian scholar Assoc Prof Peter Jackson with the aim of preventing the history and voice of the Thai GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender) community from erosion by the state.
"No official library in Thailand is collecting this material. Also, the police are out to destroy them. It's therefore essential that the Thai GLBT community, and researchers such as myself work together to save these important records of Thai queer history," explained Jackson, senior fellow in Thai history at the Australian National University's Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies.