A/HRC/56/CRP.8 women.85 Female labor leaders and women working in garment factories helped organize demonstrations against the junta. 183. Women were highly visible leaders on the frontlines of the non-violent resistance, with estimates that women comprised the majority of protestors. These women included both female activists and ordinary people studying or working in a range of professions. Young women initiated and led street protests opposing the military regime.86 Mya Thwe Thwe Khine, a twenty-year old woman, became a martyr for the revolution after becoming the first protestor to be killed by the military’s forces at a peaceful protest in Naypyitaw. 184. The non-violent resistance movement also included unprecedented, visible participation from a young generation of LGBT people. Members of Myanmar’s LGBT community marched openly in peaceful protests in the days following the coup, carrying rainbow protest posters and wearing clothing that celebrated diversity. On 19 February 2021, 1,500 LGBT people reportedly marched seven kilometers to Sule Square in downtown Yangon.87 185. While many of the women and gender diverse people on the frontlines of the nonviolent movement came from urban and middle- and upper-class backgrounds, demonstrations and civil disobedience actions included diverse and intersectional participation across geographic, ethnic, religious, and socio-economic lines. Female garment factory workers were among the first to join public protests following the coup. The broadbased participation bridged class and ethnic divides and helped cement a clear rebuke of both military rule and a discriminatory culture embedded in patriarchal ideals. The movement’s intersectionality and inclusivity has been historic for Myanmar. 186. Both women and the LGBT community spotlighted historic gender stereotypes and discriminatory beliefs in their demonstrations against the military, challenging both the coup and harmful gender norms perpetuated by the historically male-dominated and patriarchal military junta. One female activist told the Special Rapporteur: Being women in Burma, we need to fight for several things, for country freedom, for patriarchy, for gender-based violence, for a lot of things…[It is] very difficult but if we don’t work, who will work? So we need to be strong and we will continue working until we get what needs to happen. 187. Women’s outspoken demands and very presence at protests challenged gender norms that emphasize women’s place in the home and need of protection. They used posters and chants such as, “No to dictatorship, no to patriarchy.” The LGBT Alliance–Myanmar, a strike committee formed by LGBT groups from Mandalay, Yangon, Monywa, Kalay, Kyaukse, Dawei, and Yinmabin townships, similarly centered their community’s queer identities in public demonstrations. 188. In early March 2021, female protestors in Yangon began hanging htamein— undergarments and sarongs worn by Myanmar women—high across roads. In doing so, they flaunted a superstition held by many in Myanmar that a man’s masculine power, or hpon, diminishes if they pass below or come into contact with women’s undergarments or clothes worn on the lower half of the body. On 8 March, International Women’s Day, protesters across the country held a “Htamein Revolution,” hanging htamein and attaching the garments 85 86 87 Rajeev Bhattacharyya, “The Women of Myanmar’s Spring Revolution,” The Diplomat, 1 September 2023, https://thediplomat.com/2023/08/the-women-of-myanmars-spring-revolution/. International Crisis Group, “Breaking Gender and Age Barriers amid Myanmar’s Spring Revolution,” 16 February 2023, https://www.crisisgroup.org/asia/south-east-asia/myanmar/b174-breaking-genderand-age-barriers-amid-myanmars-spring-revolution. Grace Poore, “2021 Myanmar Crisis: Implications for LGBTQ People,” Outright International, 2 March 2021, https://outrightinternational.org/insights/2021-myanmar-crisis-implications-lgbtqpeople. 41