Fridae

Myanmar, where gay sex is still illegal, celebrated its first public pride last year and thousands are expected to attend Myanmar’s second-ever pride festival at the end of the month.

Earlier in the week, Fridae reported on the Disturbing LGBT Arrests in Myanmar.

With Thailand moving towards a formal same-sex Partnership, it is sad to observe neighbouring Countries seemingly move backwards.

The event saw double the attendance of previous years.

Coconuts TV highlight the suffering of the LGBT community in Myanmar where transgender in particular face discrimination and arrest.

Myanmar's biggest spirit festival has become a rare host for the country's marginalised gay community

Doug Sanders spent four weeks in Myanmar in January and February. There are changes: More tourists, easier to change money but still only a few places where credit cards are taken. And is there a gay scene, he reports.

A Chiang Mai-based LGBT rights group that serves the Burmese LGBT community and began Rainbow TV programs in late 2011 says it will continue to broadcast television programs on a monthly basis.

While the world's attention has been focused on Burma's bloody crackdown of human rights protests, judges in Hong Kong were considering whether to award the top prize of a new literary competition to a Burmese gay novel. Dinah Gardner was in Rangoon to bring you this report.