Thai GL: Visibility vs Representation 🏳️‍🌈

I started thinking about visibility vs representation in Thai GLs after reading Miusic Praewa's thoughts on why she doesn't see Runaway as a GL because it isn’t romance-centered.

Instead, she hopes audiences will see it as the story of someone who falls in love, allowing audiences to understand what love means and why this relationship exists, rather than being fixated on the idea that two people will end up together, or the quintessential "happy ending" in Thai GL.

Looking at it from that perspective could also help the audience navigate the complicated relationship of the three leads, which include Plaifah Siraacha and Piano Nichapat.

Miusic also mentioned her worries about how top/bottom roles in GLs don’t reflect real-life sapphic relationships. Her concerns are valid, as Thai GL does carry expectations like the top/bottom dynamic, and aligned with these roles, the tropes that rely on power dynamic/physicality (eg. boss/employee, taller top/shorter bottom).

These characteristics come from girls' love in Japanese yuri, which introduced top/bottom roles to its characters. And, while these make great fiction, it doesn't really reflect reality.

I also appreciate seeing an actress comment about the industry, especially someone like Miusic, who has publicly stated she's part of the community. It just hits different when you hear from someone involved in a sapphic series, and even more when they're part of the community they're trying to represent.

Miusic: I really want to act in a GL (Girls' Love) series someday. Because I'm pansexual and currently an actress, I want to contribute to this community and show people that love is something that can happen to anyone. There will be a day... I believe I can do it. -X, May 2023

Her perspective hit me: I feel like Thai GL is still largely in the visibility stage — making sapphic love seen, even if not yet fully represented.

For this post, I'll use a spectrum to illustrate sapphic portrayal in Thai GL, and includes the following stages: invisibility, visibility, and representation.

I break down the evolution of sapphic representation in Thai GL, where I believe it is in terms of representing sapphic love, and where I hope it's headed.

Visibility and Representation in Thai GL

Table of Contents:

1. Planting Seeds of Visibility: GL Side Couples

2. From the Margins to the Center — Pioneering Thai GLs

3. Why Tropes are Prominent

4. Representation Requires a Shift in Assumptions

5. There's Room for Every Kind of GL

6. The Real Problem isn't Taste — it's Limitation

7. Visibility Opened the Door, but We've Got a Long Way to Go

Planting Seeds of Visibility: GL Side Couples

It might seem unthinkable now, but there was a time when sapphic characters and couples were invisible or not as overtly portrayed in film and TV.

Media reflects the society of its time, and as attitudes around LGBTQ+ people changed, so did their portrayal in media.

Before Thai GL series had sapphic couples as leads, they often appeared in smaller, safer forms: the side couple. Think Ink (Milk Pansa) and Pa (Love Pattranite) in 2021's Bad Buddy.

Or further back, Dao (Fon Sananthachat) and Koi (Belle Kemisara, who played Kae in ClaireBell) back in 2013 in Hormones (which also starred Love Design's Kao Supassra).

Of course, we can't forget the groundbreaking 2010 film Yes or No, which was the first Thai film to portray a sapphic couple as leads. Other sapphic films that followed include She: Their Love Story and Fingering (yes, this is the actual title and a big part of the storyline, lol).

While sapphic characters appeared as guest stars in dramas, having them as leads didn't happen on TV, and audiences had to wait 12 years after Yes or No was released to see a sapphic couple lead a series, with FreenBecky in Gap.

Side couples started out as visible but secondary, existing alongside the main plot and often confined to familiar dynamics. Ink was a high school friend of the leads, while Pa is the sister of one of the leads.

Dao was a main character, but her storyline started with a heterosexual romance. Koi was first portrayed just as Dao's friend without her own storyline, but their relationship, and Koi's story, evolved in the next seasons. Hormones had multiple leads, so the GL storyline wasn't the focus of the series.

Sapphic visibility typically comes first, and nuance follows later.

Despite being on the sidelines, side couples shouldn’t be seen as “lesser” stories. They represent an early stage of visibility: characters finally allowed to exist on screen, even if their stories didn’t yet drive the narrative.

Sapphic characters gradually moved from the sidelines to central roles, when Gap premiered in 2022.

From the Margins to the Center — Pioneering Thai GLs

When Thai GL finally moved sapphic couples to leading roles, it felt revolutionary. Gap proved that stories about two women could carry a full romantic arc and reach global audiences. As of writing, Gap has more than 1.7 billion views on Idol Factory's YouTube.

But center stage didn’t automatically mean representation because many GL series relied (and still rely on):

Clear, Easily Understandable Dynamics

Often top/bottom, protector/soft roles, or having characteristics typically associated with masculinity and femininity, reinforcing the idea of a "man" and "woman" in the relationship.

Familiar Romantic Beats with Neat, Happy Endings

Despite everything the characters go through, and even when certain moments or situations threaten them ending up together, they always do. Nobody really breaks up (or not for long) in Thai GL.

Another trope also comes into play here: the wedding, since Thai GLs almost always end with the characters getting married (not complaining, just pointing out).

Conflicts Designed to Reassure Rather Than Destabilize

These stories often favor conflicts that reassure the audience: problems arise, but they never seriously unsettle the relationship’s foundation or challenge how the characters understand their love.

1. External Obstacles, Not Internal Desire

Examples include disapproving parents, workplace rules, social expectations, or class differences.

• The conflict comes from the outside, not from how the women feel about each other.

• The couple is emotionally aligned early on, and the audience is never meant to doubt their commitment.

• Why it reassures: It frames sapphic love as pure and unquestioned — only society is the problem.

• Portrayal in Thai GL: Gap had it all: homophobic grandmother, no dating rule in the office, Sam (Freen Sarocha) as a member of nobility, and everything that came with it, plus Mon (Becky Armstrong) being a commoner and Mon's employee.

2. Misunderstandings That Resolve Quickly

One character overhears something out of context, gets hurt, but the truth comes out within an episode or two.

• No long-term emotional damage and the misunderstanding exists just long enough to create angst.

• No change in how the characters see each other.

• Why it reassures: The relationship itself is never unstable — communication fixes everything and forgiveness is guaranteed.

• Portrayal in Thai GL: This is a common Thai GL trope. Comment below which series came to mind when you read this!

  
  

3. Pre-Defined Emotional Roles

One character is always the protector, initiator, or emotional anchor, while the other is consistently softer or more reactive.

• Conflict reinforces these roles instead of challenging them.

• Resolution often involves the “stronger” character stepping in.

• Why it reassures: The audience always knows who will act, who will forgive, and who will hold the relationship together.

• Portrayal in Thai GL: Pluto comes to mind, with May being the one who's always caring for Ai's emotional needs, and at one point, even cooked for her.

  
  

  There's even a heartbreaking scene towards the end when May asks if anybody cares about what she wants because she keeps getting pushed aside for others.

  
  

  I appreciate that they assigned this role to May instead of Ai, because it avoided portraying people with disabilities as weak or dependent.

  

  
  

4. Temporary Rival Love Interests

A third person appears but is clearly not a real threat.

• The rival exists to provoke jealousy without really standing a chance.

• The audience can predict the outcome because it was never really a competition.

• Why it reassures: Jealousy becomes proof of love, not a source of rupture.

• Portrayal in Thai GL: The Secret of Us is the first GL I thought of, with two women hitting on each lead, but you could apply this to almost all GLs because there's almost always a rival love interest.

5. Conflict That Strengthens Bond

An argument that ends with a confession, kiss, or emotional breakthrough.

• Pain leads directly to closeness

• No lingering resentment and there are no unresolved emotional consequences

• Why it reassures: Every problem confirms the relationship instead of testing it.

• Portrayal in Thai GL: This is prevalent in enemies-to-lovers GLs, as there comes a point when they stop being enemies and start to understand each other, and hate turns into attraction.

  
  

  Another example could be ClaireBell. While there was an initial attraction between the two characters, their relationship really took a turn when they started learning about each other's lives and accelerated when they simultaneously experienced loss and became each other's safe space.

This isn’t a flaw — it’s a survival strategy. Having lead couples increased the stakes (and risk) for the production. Making sapphic characters leads didn't guarantee that they would be easily understood by the audience, especially those outside the community.

Despite progress in LGBTQ+ recognition, there still exists misconceptions and discrimination against queer people everywhere.

For example, feminine-presenting queer women still need to explain how their looks have nothing to do with who they want to date:

Because of how the world has been conditioned by heteronormative standards, the love between two women might be villainized, trivialized, or misunderstood, so these storytelling elements probably served as signposts that helped guide the audience.

The stories weren’t just romance, they were proof that sapphic love could be safe, aspirational, and as this industry is still a business, commercially viable.

Why Tropes Are So Prominent

Critics often point to the prevalence of recognizable tropes, but in the visibility stage, they function as narrative shorthand. Tropes help audiences quickly understand:

• Who desires whom

• Where emotional safety lies

• How intimacy unfolds

Clarity matters when the genre is still securing legitimacy. The problem isn’t that tropes exist — it’s when they stop being choices and start being treated as definitions, as if saying "this is a GL so it should fit within this box and have A, B, and C to be considered valid."

Representation Requires a Shift in Assumptions

Representation begins when stories stop feeling the need to explain themselves — when queer love isn’t framed as an exception. It’s the difference between:

What sapphic love is supposed to look like vs How and why these two people fell in love

Representation allows for:

• Messy or shifting dynamics

• Characters who don’t fit neat roles

• Conflicts rooted in personality, timing, or desire

  
  

Some newer Thai GLs gesture in this direction. Runaway broke the top/bottom dynamic because the characters keep shifting from strong to weak and protector to protected throughout their timelines and storylines.

I find this realistic, as there are no set roles in real-life relationships. A healthy relationship should display shifting dynamics: when one person is weak, the other person can be strong for both of them, rather than expecting one person to do the heavy lifting all the time.

But representation doesn’t replace visibility — it exists alongside it.

There's Room for Every Kind of GL

Not everyone watches GL for the same reason. Some viewers enjoy comfort-focused or light-hearted stories filled with tropes, and that doesn’t make them lesser.

Some days, you just want something easy that allows you to escape to a world where problems are easily resolved and you can expect a happy ending.

For people living through difficult realities, predictable romance and emotional safety can be a refuge. They offer reassurance and show a world where things work out, which is exactly what someone would need if that's not their reality.

Younger queer people who are discovering their sexuality with no support around them, or worse, living in a homophobic environment, could find comfort and hope in these stories.

Despite watching 23.5 as an adult, I still felt like it healed my inner child, especially with how supportive the parents are about their kids coming out because I had the opposite story growing up.

Other viewers may want complexity and nuance: ambiguity, emotional friction, and narratives reflecting the contradictions of queer life. Shows like Runaway and ClaireBell show stories where love can develop out of the most extreme situations.

Runaway is tragic for a Thai sapphic series, and its characters are so morally ambiguous that they don't fit the ideal GL characters you root for, and some people prefer that, too.

Whale Store xoxo, while fitting the conventional cutesy GL at times, also tackled the real issue of debt, trying to save a failing business, and the Wal-Mart effect.

The Real Problem isn’t Taste — it’s Limitation

The issue isn’t that Thai GL includes comfort-focused or trope-driven stories. The problem would arise if those were the only stories allowed to exist.

Representation doesn’t take comfort away — it simply ensures comfort isn’t the only option.

Personally, I'm down for anything, as long as it doesn't promote anything that harms the community it's trying to represent. As a foreigner, I also try to remind myself to check my mindset because I want to be as respectful as I can be to the culture.

If there's something I don't necessarily agree with or understand, I'll try to look it up to understand the intention behind it, and what drove the creators to include it because, sometimes, it's so much bigger than the actresses and the production companies.

It might be the culture, political situation, or norms it exists in, and you can't change that overnight, but it also doesn't mean it will never change. Just look at how Thailand legalized marriage equality this year — it's proof that they can change things once they're ready.

And, if something negative happens, I believe in giving others a chance to improve as long as they're willing to, rather than canceling them. It's a balancing act, but that's also why it's great that we have so much diversity now. I can choose which shows and couples I want to engage with and those that aren't really for me.

Even if I don't understand or agree with everything I see in the industry, I remain hopeful that things will keep getting better from here.

Thai GL is still pretty new, and it should be expected that there will be bumps on their road to success. It's about giving them a chance to explore, grow, and evolve.

And if they make mistakes along the way, I still trust that production companies and actresses will listen to feedback, and see how and where they take this genre next.

Visibility Opened the Door, but We've Got a Long Way to Go

My wishlist for the future of sapphic representation in Thai GL?

More stories and more diversity in characters, whether in showing different sexual orientations and gender identities, disabilities, body types, and other traits beyond the beauty standard.

As of now, a lot of Thai GL is aspirational, showing privileged characters that don't struggle with money or are conventionally attractive, and there's nothing wrong with that because it got us to where we are now. I also don't want to invalidate the experiences of people who have money or looks because they also have their own struggles despite their privileges.

But to take it closer to representing the community, we need to show characters and stories that break the mold, and I'll patiently wait until we get there because I believe we'll get there in time.

Recent Thai GL has also strayed from the tom/dee (masc/femme) couple shown during the Yes or No days. However, upcoming 2026 GL Be My Angel brings back this type of couple.

In the future, I hope we also see more diversity in characters, such as adding trans and nonbinary characters, and featuring pairings that are a little more unconventional, such as a GL with a tom/tom couple, because why not? Masc/masc relationships also exist in real life, and they're just as valid as anyone else's relationship.

Thai GL isn’t failing sapphic storytelling. It’s growing and evolving, but it will take time and effort to take it from visibility to representation.

In a world where queer people are still being discriminated and our rights taken away, I'm just grateful we still have people and companies who are pushing for the community and its stories to be visible.

Side-couples made sapphic love visible at the margins, while lead-focused GLs brought it to the center.

The next step isn’t replacing what came before, but widening the space so softness, fantasy, messiness, and complexity can all exist together.

Visibility was necessary and representation is the road we’re still working towards.

And there's room for all of it. 🫶🏼

Disclaimer: This post isn’t meant to discredit Thai GL or the people who love it. I’m grateful for how much visibility the genre has brought to sapphic love, especially in a media landscape where queer women have long been sidelined or erased.

When I talk about visibility versus representation, I’m not ranking stories or saying one type of GL is “better” than another. Comfort-focused, trope-driven romances matter — especially for viewers who find safety, hope, or escape in them. At the same time, I believe it’s worth talking about where the genre can go next and how representation can expand without taking anything away.

You don’t have to agree with everything here to engage. This is simply one fan’s perspective, offered with respect for the industry, the actresses, and the audiences that made Thai GL possible in the first place.

I’d love to hear which GLs you feel already represent sapphic relationships well — or what kinds of stories you hope to see more of. Share your thoughts in the comments below!