An embattled transgender activist has filed charges against one of Thailand’s most famous universities for not hiring her as a full-time lecturer because of ‘unjust’ reasons despite her faculty’s approval.   

Kath Khangpiboon, a well-known LGBTI activist from the Thai Transgender Alliance (Thai TGA), at 11 am, on Monday 12 October 2015, filed lawsuits against Thammasat University, the second oldest university in Thailand, and the university committee at the Administrative Court of Bangkok.

She accused the university and its committee of malfeasance for turning down her application as a lecturer for ‘unjustifiable’ reasons.  

The 28-year-old Sexual Orientations and Gender Identification or Expressions (SOGIEs) advocate on April 2015 was rejected by the committee responsible for screening university personnel at Thammasat after she had been teaching for about 10 months and had passed all the teaching criteria of the Faculty of Social Administration with excellent references from the faculty.

The university did not clarify as to why they turned her down, but only stated that she behaved inappropriately on social media.

Later Kath submitted an appeal to the university and demanded that the university clarify the decision, but the university did not provide any other details for rejecting her application and maintained its decision.

Kath, centre, with many of her supporters at the Administrative Court of Bangkok, 12 October 2015 (courtesy of Kath Klangpiboon)   

“The criteria which they cited for turning down my application as lecturer are unjust and unjustifiable”, Kath told Prachatai. “I know that it will be a long and difficult legal process that might take up to 10 years, but I’m willing to endure it in order to create new standards of LGBTI rights in this country.”

She pointed out that the university had never before used personal behaviour or expression as criteria to employ lecturers.

The SOGIEs activist added that she only posted Facebook pictures and content to educate people about LGBTI issues and that the university committee should have read the content of her post, not just look at the pictures and judge her.

Last year, Thammasat University’s decision to hire Kath caused a stir in many social media outlets, with many questioning the appropriateness of employing transgender persons to work in the field of education.

Kath graduated with both bachelor's and master's degrees in Social Administration from Thammasat University. She is one of the most active voices in the LGBTI community in Thailand and is engaged in work to promote LGBTI rights and gender issues with several civil society organisations.

She applied for a lecturer position at the Faculty of Social Administration of Thammasat University’s campus in Lampang, northern Thailand, in February 2014.

Through much struggle, Kath has been an active LGBTI activist in pushing the Thai government to implement the Gender Equality Act, the first law in the country aimed at protecting rights and eliminating discrimination against LGBTI. The Act recently came into effect on 9 September 2015.

Despite criticism of Article 17 of the 2015 Gender Equality Act, which states that acts to protect the freedom and security of individuals or in accordance with religious rules or national security cannot be considered as gender discrimination, many LGBTI prefer to look at the positive features of the Act.