A regime-controlled newspaper claims that ethnic armed groups are taking advantage of political turmoil caused by the coup to further their own military goals.
Myanmar military kills two more protesters after Sunday s record violence pbs.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from pbs.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Myanmar still has a colonial-era anti-sodomy law and, although more publicly gay figures and Pride events have pushed progress, discrimination remains common.
Min Khant, who applied his skills as a makeup artist to prepare his friends for the demonstrations, said the mass struggle against military dictatorship “will make us more accepted”.
“We all know what we are facing,” he said. “We ask that the world helps us.”
During the marches on Wednesday, the drag queens were met with applause.
A protester carrying a rainbow flag marches in front of the US embassy. Photograph: Nyein Chan Naing/EPA
Meanwhile, in the south-east coastal city of Mawlamyine, Kyaw Minn Htike, 25, broke one of Myanmar’s biggest taboos by protesting openly as a Rohingya – the predominantly Muslim minority from Rakhine state subjected to a brutal 2017 crackdown by the Myanmar military that human rights lawyers have described as genocide.