Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ) people in Cambodia face legal challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents.
[3] Through their work, they have persuaded the Government to introduce new LGBT-inclusive education classes in all Cambodian schools and to offer same-sex couples limited legal recognition.
Private, adult, non-commercial and consensual sexual activity between people of the same sex is legal in Cambodia, and was never criminalised within the history of the country.
In one case of partnership recognition, Khav Sokha and Pum Eth were married on 12 March 1995, in the village of Kro Bao Ach Kok, in Kandal Province, where they are from.
In 2015, Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan expressed support for same-sex marriage in Cambodia, by saying that current law already protects LGBT people from discrimination.
The Cambodian Center for Human Rights disputed this statement and called on the Government to pass legislation in order to ensure LGBT equality.
[9][10] In July 2019, the Cambodian Government accepted recommendations to legalise same-sex marriage from Iceland, the Netherlands and Canada during the country's third Universal Periodic Review, which is held by the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC).
[13] The Constitution does not expressly protect LGBT people from discrimination, but it does guarantee equal rights for all citizens, irrespective of sex or "other status".
[4] In 2007, Prime Minister of Cambodia Hun Sen publicly stated that he was disowning and disinheriting his adopted daughter because she is a lesbian and had married another woman.
The courses cover topics such as sexual health, gender-based violence, gender identity and combating discrimination against the LGBT population.
[25] Evidence suggests that people of diverse sexual orientation and gender identity were an accepted part of society over 700 years ago.
According to the writings of a Chinese diplomat named Chou Ta-kuan (also spelled Zhou Daguan), who visited the Kingdom at the time, there were men who dressed as women in the vicinity of Angkor Wat, indicating the prevalence of gender non-conformity during that period.
Long hairs (សក់វែង sák vêng, also called ស្រីស្រស់ srei srás, meaning "charming girls") identify and behave as women, and may use hormones and surgery to change their physical sex.
The general social environment towards khteuys is tolerant, but those who transgress gender behaviour are nevertheless treated with contempt and subject to discrimination ("real men" with important jobs who engage in same-sex relations hide their lifestyles).
While the cultural mores and Buddhism tend to produce a degree of tolerance for LGBT people, harassment and discrimination still occur and there is also intense social pressure to marry a suitable person of the opposite sex, and raise a family.
[30] In 2019, Keo Remy, the director of the Cambodia Human Rights Committee, said that there has been an increase of HIV infections within the LGBT community, especially among people under 30.
It was written and directed by Phoan Phuong Bopha and was shown on Cambodian Television Network (CTN), the country's most-watched TV station, dozens of times.
In an interview conducted in 2018, Ith Sovannareach, founder of La Chhouk Recycled & Creative Fashion, said that "Just five or 10 years ago, Cambodians saw the LGBT community as social trash... People saw them as unnatural strangers...