Pride and Persecution

As Pride Month is celebrated worldwide, Myanmar LGBTQIA+ activists are mobilizing and demonstrating their resistance against the illegal military junta while they continue to face severe systemic discrimination, persecution, sexual harassment, gender-based violence, and societal prejudice. The LGBTQIA+ community has been at the forefront of the Spring Revolution from the beginning—contributing to and participating in Myanmar’s pursuit of inclusive federal democracy and demonstrating the utmost commitment to inclusivity, equality, human rights, and justice. Thus, in the pursuit of human rights for all, it is vital that the National Unity Government (NUG), Ethnic Resistance Organizations (EROs), National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC) and other federal units through their local governance structures and legal and judicial mechanisms, take all necessary measures to ensure the protection and promotion of LGBTQIA+ rights. These must include introducing or strengthening anti-discrimination and equality policies and laws, and implementing and enforcing these measures effectively to address harmful societal prejudices.

Despite pervasive and systemic discrimination and repression, Myanmar’s LGBTQIA+ community persistently asserts their rights and promotes the principles of justice and human rights. Marking Pride Month, a community march organized by LGBT Alliance Myanmar on 7 June in Salingyi Township, Sagaing Region, celebrated Myanmar’s LGBTQIA+ community and boldly protested against military tyranny—including highlighting their widespread violations of LGBTQIA+ rights. Since the devastating earthquake on 28 March, Colors Rainbow—an LGBTQIA+ rights organization—has been responding to the community’s difficulties in accessing mainstream humanitarian aid. Humanitarian aid sensitive to the needs and specific vulnerabilities of affected LGBTQIA+ people is being delivered through trusted local partners on the ground. Human rights groups, including Progressive Voice, also ensure that their local LGBTQIA+ humanitarian frontline responders are able to deliver emergency aid to quake-affected communities.

Historically marginalized by repressive laws and societal prejudices, LGBTQIA+ people in Myanmar face an escalated and intensified degree of discrimination and persecution in junta-controlled territories since the 2021 coup attempt. Lacking safe spaces or legal protection, LGBTQIA+ people are routinely subjected to gender-based violence, sexual harassment, violent abuse, and torture. A report by Queers of Burma Alternative (QBA) reveals that the junta’s forced conscription campaign is disproportionately targeting and impacting the LGBTQIA+ community. As the report highlights, LGBTQIA+ people often lack legal, economic, or social leverage to escape forced recruitment, and are targeted for conscription by prejudicial administrators and military personnel. Pervasive cultural, religious, and social discriminatory norms prevent many from freely expressing their identity in many communities and cause them to suffer systemic inequality in workplaces, schools, in asserting legal rights, in accessing adequate and gender-sensitive healthcare, and with prejudice in interpersonal relations.

Demonstrating resilience and principled action, the Myanmar LGBTQIA+ community has played an integral part in and made enormous contribution to the Spring Revolution since the beginning. Championing equality, justice, human rights, and democracy, LGBTQIA+ activists and organizations have fought against military tyranny—through political activism, armed resistance, or human rights and humanitarian work—and sought to lay foundations for a more inclusive Myanmar in which LGBTQIA+ rights are protected and promoted. Whilst incomparable to the military’s discrimination and persecution, in areas under resistance control, the NUG, EROs, and local governance structures do not go far enough to ensure LGBTQIA+ rights are protected in the bedrock of their political and legal structures. Furthermore, discriminatory practices and attitudes in resistance forces and other elements of the Spring Revolution are contrary to the principles of the Revolution and hamper the pursuit of true inclusivity and equality. Heteronormative and patriarchal political and social structures in Myanmar must be challenged and dismantled by legitimate governance structures that are genuinely based on democratic norms, to bring decisive change for a future Myanmar that promotes equality and true representation of its diverse population.

At Bangkok’s annual Pride March, Myanmar participants marched with a banner stating ‘Myanmar Junta Has No Pride’ and called for an end to the junta’s unabating and intensifying human rights violations and attacks on all civilians, including the LGBTQIA+ community. In Thailand, where the LGBTQIA+ community enjoys a great deal of cultural acceptance, inclusivity, and legal rights—including the recent legalization of same-sex marriage—displaced LGBTQIA+ people from Myanmar are able to enjoy some degree of freedom and acceptance, as well as greater solidarity from allies in Thailand. However, in other states where Myanmar people have sought safety, LGBTQIA+ refugees often face the compounded challenges of forced displacement, insecurity, and pervasive gender-based discrimination, persecution, and violence. It is essential that the specific vulnerabilities of LGBTQIA+ refugees are recognized by host countries and that protections and rights are afforded accordingly to ensure they can live with dignity and security.

Myanmar’s LGBTQIA+ community’s contributions to the Spring Revolution and to the principles of human rights, equality, and justice, must be celebrated this Pride Month. However, celebration and recognition must be coupled with meaningful political action. Myanmar’s legitimate political actors, namely the NUG, NUCC, EROs, and federal unit councils and their local governance structures, must bear their political responsibilities to address historic and ongoing marginalization of the LGBTQIA+ community and protect their rights through anti-discrimination and equality policies and laws in their political and legal frameworks. If decision-makers in the Spring Revolution embrace the LGBTQIA+ community with serious political will and attention, it will pave the way for more extensive social change and broader acceptance—which in turn will allow greater freedom of LGBTQIA+ people to express their identity and continue to contribute to a new Myanmar that is peaceful and truly democratic. To realize sustainable democratic principles in the Spring Revolution, all peoples must be represented, with their voices heard, and their rights respected. These measures are necessary for a future democratic, federal Myanmar to be truly inclusive and allow all its peoples to live proudly and with dignity and protection of human rights.

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[1] One year following the 1988 pro-democracy uprising, the former military junta changed the country’s name from Burma to Myanmar overnight. Progressive Voice uses the term ‘Myanmar’ in acknowledgement that most people of the country use this term. However, the deception of inclusiveness and the historical process of coercion by the former State Peace and Development Council military regime into usage of ‘Myanmar’ rather than ‘Burma’ without the consent of the people is recognized and not forgotten. Thus, under certain circumstances, ‘Burma’ is used.

Progressive Voice is a participatory, rights-based policy research and advocacy organization that was born out of Burma Partnership. Burma Partnership officially ended its work on October 10, 2016 transitioning to a rights-based policy research and advocacy organization called Progressive Voice. For further information, please see our press release “Burma Partnership Celebrates Continuing Regional Solidarity for Burma and Embraces the Work Ahead for Progressive Voice.”