The funeral of a young librarian this afternoon began and ended with mourners comforting his devastated grandmother. In between was a frenzied hour that confirmed the gay man a martyr to the struggle for LGBT rights in Myanmar.
Kyaw Zin Win, 26, took his own life on Sunday (June 23) after posting on Facebook evidence of homophobic bullying by his colleagues at Myanmar Imperial University (MIU), where he had worked for more than one and a half years.
His friend, Sai Shang Kham, 23, recalls Kyaw Zin Win “dropping his CV everywhere” before the university employed him.
“He had a strong personality and a lot of confidence,” said Sai Shang Kham, one of about 200 people transported in five buses from the librarian’s home in the eastern Yangon suburb of Thaketa to Kyi Su cemetery.
The passengers were friends and relatives, but also people who had never met Kyaw Zin Win: transgender, lesbian, and gay people, some who had driven from other cities for the funeral, and a dozen media.
His final Facebook post has gone viral. It includes screenshots of colleagues mocking him and a revelation that his manager forced him to come out at work.
Kyaw Zin Win was open about his sexuality in his personal life, said Sai Shang Kham, and, although it was not properly discussed, “his family knew.”
That is why, when his boss pressed him to come out, he said yes, “and she just took his answer and made jokes about it in the group chat.
“Her message said ‘don’t be like him.’ Well, why not? Are we something disgusting? That message was the starting point for our community to come together for him.
“We don’t want his loss to just disappear. This is a moment to move forward for LGBT in Myanmar.”
Kyaw Zin Win lived with his grandmother, aunty and younger brother. He supported all of them through his job, said his friends, as his parents had divorced and started new families.
On the weekends he would watch movies and drink coffee in downtown Yangon. A young gay man on the bus saw similarities between them; both had faced abuse and both dreamt of a day when Myanmar would scrap a 155-year-old law that criminalized homosexuality.
The drab buses were splashed with rainbow badges and scarves. They pulled in next to some grazing buffalo and the smoking furnace of the crematorium.
Yesterday his family had asked people for restraint when videoing and photographing the funeral, but that was too much for most, including one of three police officers deployed for crowd control, who took out his phone and began photographing Kyaw Zin Win’s body.
After 15 minutes, a procession moved towards the crematorium, carrying flowers, crying, live streaming. Kyaw Zin Win had been made to feel shame for being gay but his family had given permission for him to be cremated with a rainbow flag draped over his body.
Seconds before his body was carried through the crematorium door, a transwoman cut through the racket.
“We acknowledge you as a hero,” she said, looking down at Kyaw Zin Win’s soft, youthful face. “And now we will say goodbye to you.”
Heads bowed for a minute’s silence, though hands holding ipads and smartphones remained raised. Through the screens you could see the indigo, red, yellow and green.
Then the wailing continued, because a 26-year-old man with his life ahead of him had been bullied and harassed and had stopped his life short—and the woman crying could not accept it.
Back on the bus, people were checking their phones: a joint statement from 60 rights groups calling for justice for the librarian and more inclusion for LGBT people was being shared.
Also being shared was an image of Kyaw Win Zin’s grandmother weeping next to a portrait of him. Without her grandson, she will have his cousins and her daughter for support, assured Sai Shang Kham.
“The feeling of loss will be the main scar for his grandmother,” he added.
