World Wide Wave

1 Apr 2013

Myanmar: HIV skyrockets in ‘invisibilised’ culture for queerness

Asia/Pacific

“Myanmar has an invisibilised culture for queerness” Benjamin Law, author of Gaysia: Adventures in the Queer East. HIV rates are at a quarter million and skyrocketing, but ART drugs are in very short supply. Only one in five need treatment has it. Benjamin Law explains the situation is dire, “Even in an agency like MSF [doctors without borders], if you happen to come across them in peak, you just don’t get them [ART], you die.”

And there is discrimination. One government worker told Benjamin Law that he was brushed off by his supervisors, “You can come back to work once your tests for HIV are clear.”

The situation in Myanmar is grim. But, as one activist Aung Myo Min poetically explained to Gay Star News, “We can feel the winds of change, but we cannot see it yet.”

But, as always, there is hope. This month, Myanmar held its first International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, which included a 106-year-old LGBT speaker.

You can read more on W3JOY’s Myanmar webpage.

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