May 22, 2012

Burma Celebrates First Public LGBT Pride Event

Burma’s first-ever public LGBT pride event, held in a Rangoon hotel and attended by about 400 people, may signal a shift toward reforming the country’s policies that criminalize homosexuality, BBC News reports. Organizers warned that the South Asian country’s anti-LGBT policies and social taboos concerning sexuality have contributed to a lack of sexual health information for its LGBT citizens, which in turn has led to high HIV rates among Burmese men who have sex with men. A 2011 United Nations report estimated that nearly 30 percent of gay men in some Burmese cities have HIV.

To read the BBC article, click here.

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