Date: August 11, 2012

Activists and observers have noticed a seachange in the past five years. Photo: AFP

AFTER two women wed in Vietnam’s south in 1999, the country outlawed gay marriage. But now there are signs that it may become the first country in Asia to legalise same-sex unions.

Last month, Justice Minister Ha Hung Cuong said that legalising same-sex marriage was under consideration as part of an overhaul of marriage laws next year.

On Sunday, Hanoi played host to the country’s first gay pride march, with some 100 people showing up to cycle around the city on bikes decorated with balloons.

A parade was mooted for Valentine’s Day last year in Ho Chi Minh City but did not go ahead, more thanks to a lack of planning than any opposition.

A framework to handle property and adoption issues was needed, he said. The move is likely to be debated by Vietnam’s main legislative body, the National Assembly, next year.

Vietnam is socially conservative and until recently homosexuality was classed as a ”social evil” in the communist nation. But activists and observers have noticed a seachange in the past five years.

Films such as Hot Boy, detailing the life of a rent boy, attracted reasonable numbers at the cinema – in a country where local content falls far behind US action films or Korean romantic comedies at the box office – and few cuts from censors.

Although overall the portrayal of gay characters relies on stock prancing comedy figures, there has been growing sympathy. Newspapers especially have looked into gay and transgender issues in Vietnam, highlighting the difficulty transgender people have getting hospital treatment as they are not allowed to change their gender on their mandatory government ID cards and are often treated as men or dismissed by hospital staff.

Panels of sociologists have also discussed gay issues and although some still see it as a condition to be ”cured”, many see homosexuals as deserving the same respect as any other group.

In 2010, two gay weddings, between a male couple and a female couple, went viral on YouTube. This year, a wedding between two young men in the Mekong Delta was broken up and the families fined 200,000 dong (about $A10).

It’s a stark change from even 15 years ago, when newspapers ran shock stories over ”gay” spirit mediums.

In March, through AusAID, Australia gave almost $100,000 in support of lesbian, gay and transgender issues and workshops as part of the 2011-12 Human Rights Grant scheme.