Introduction

As the music begins, Emi Grate looks out at the audience, coming into the light to reveal a traditional Burmese outfit, bedazzled. She takes a deep breath before beginning to sing, her live vocals debuting with the line “it won’t be easy”. Her performance toes the line between emotional and satirical as she performs her take on “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina”, instead coining it “Don’t Cry for Me, My Dear Burma” (Grate 2024). She plays with the original lyrics, singing “all you will see is the boy you once knew, although he’s dressed up as a girl – and don’t I look good?” She raises her arms in the air as she proclaims that she chose freedom. Emi is a drag artist from Mandalay, Myanmar^[1], now active in the drag scene in Brooklyn, USA. Her choice of freedo

m is evident in her playful drag name, her “choice” was to migrate, or to leave. Moving forwards, Emi alters the lyric “my mad existence” to “my queer existence”, proclaiming that her love for Burma persists beyond the barriers presented by her queerness within the state. She closes with her hands to the air and spotlight, surrounded by trumpeting music and uproarious applause.

This moving piece, first introduced in 2016, was performed again when Emi appeared at Dragistan, her work reflecting upon the past several years of post-coup violence throughout the state of Myanmar. This piece, and its growth throughout Emi’s performances in 2016, 2019, and 2024, will be explored with the aim of further understanding of how Emi merges identity and performance through this emotional work. Considering Richard Schechner’s seven functions of performance, I want to focus on Emi’s work as created to heal and to make or foster community (Schechner 2020), specifically within the unique authoritarian political environment of Myanmar.

In Myanmar, discussions and experiences of gender performance are fraught with prejudice and suppression. Still, Myanmar people hold their own language of defining and situating queerness, as well as a long history of community activism. In 2021, democratic leadership was overthrown in a violent coup (Ratcliffe 2024). Since then, freedom of expression and gathering has been extremely limited, and LGBTQ+ persecution has been further solidified (Poore 2021). This background leads to the key question of to what extent does drag performance play a role in anti-authoritarian sociopolitical movements in Myanmar? Here, it will be asserted that Myanmar drag exists as anti-authoritarian political resistance with the capacity to build community and inspire protest amongst repressive military violence.

Dragistan – Emi Grate 2024

To establish my own positionality in relation to this subject, I am a queer Burmese-Canadian undergraduate student. I was born in Canada, to a father born and raised in Yangon, Myanmar. In my early youth, I visited Myanmar, where many of my family members and loved ones still reside. Since the military coup, I have not been able to return. This research therefore exists from an insider-outsider standpoint. Additionally, my research compiles both direct testimony from interviewing and corresponding with Emi Grate, alongside additional literature.

Literature Review

Existing literature surrounding LGBTQ+ people in Myanmar highlights the role of queer people in political activism. The Politics of Love in Myanmar introduces and defines key terms used to identify LGBTQ+ people in the State, while also identifying queer political mobilizations (Chua 2018). Similarly, Gender Construction, Inequality, and LGBT Participation in the Politics of Myanmar discusses the blockades to political participation for LGBTQ+ people, while also aiming to understand gender as a performance within Myanmar (Nant Mu Say 2024).

In Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Minorities in Transition, the dichotomous language of non-normative identity in Myanmar is unpacked, asserting that the status you are accorded is greatly dependent on your perception as what Western notions would refer to as “top” or “bottom” (Chua and Gilbert 2015).

Further repositioning drag outside of normative Western understandings, Rafael Ramirez (2024) identifies the importance of drag as anticolonial, engaging in research within the Filipino drag scene. This analysis evidences how drag has been co-opted in the West for profit, without consideration of its political and revolutionary power. In a similar vein of anticolonial scholarship, Winter Han (2023) contributes that Asian drag queens experience intersecting forms of oppression, but also argues that drag presents a valuable opening for performers to feel “attractive and desirable within a context that defines them as neither”.

Once again considering comparable projects, Yue et al. (2010) discuss the situation of Asian drag queens in Australia – a physical border-crossing that can provide relevant insights on Emi Grate’s positionality as a Myanmar performer now living in the Global North. Yue et al. identify that the traversing of boundaries by Asian drag queens is often both concrete and metaphorical, a shift in physical positioning and outside of enforced norms.

While there is evidently existing (albeit limited) literature regarding LGBTQ+ existence in Myanmar, this can not be equated with Myanmar drag research. There are present academic discussions taking place concerning political movements and activism in the LGBTQ+ sphere, but there is a notable gap where I wish to situate my work, surrounding the capacity of drag to play a meaningful role in political resistance and constructing hope amongst authoritarianism. In particular, discourse on Myanmar drag in academia is virtually nonexistent, an absence that is concerning due to the large population of people that this conversation is relevant to. Therefore, this research aims to build upon investigations of queer Myanmar politics to establish a direct dialogue around Myanmar drag and political empowerment.

Queer Political Engagement in Myanmar 

Frontier Myanmar, an anti-junta publication, called LGBTQ+ revolutionaries Myanmar’s “rainbow heroes” (Frontier 2023). In the aftermath of the 2021 military coup, queer folks experienced abuse and torture while fighting for the restoration of democracy. In Burmese, terms of gender and sexuality are more intertwined than in English, and the community is tirelessly advocating for basic rights, without the space to consider LGBTQ+ discourses that may exist in Western contexts. In light of this, it is important to recognize that while “is drag queer?” may be a fraught question in other sociopolitical contexts, the answer within Myanmar is a definitive yes. For Emi, queerness, being Burmese, and performance are intertwined: “[My drag] stories sooner or later involve Burma because that’s who I am” (Grate 2025).

Emi immigrated before the coup, first to study theatre in America, then remaining in America through seeking asylum. Her drag is often connected to politics and engagement, with Emi stating “I’ve been able to perform within Burmese circles, and I’ve also been performing in Burmese outside Burmese circles. The way I’ve gotten involved with political revolutionary activism is that this time, it’s all hands on deck. […] So I feel like this love letter act I’ve created has been seen and heard a little more” (Grate 2025). Don’t Cry for Me, My Dear Burma, the love letter Emi makes reference to, evidences the kinship of queer and Burmese identity.

Under the junta, queer folks and drag performers are subject to isolation and repression. In an interview with XXJudgement (2021), Emi Grate says that before immigrating, she “knew of crossdressers. [She] knew that they were a social class that we don’t interact with”. Today, internet connection and international communication is expensive and difficult to come by. Therefore, drag performers within Myanmar face challenges in building a platform, or finding safe spaces for expression. It is important to consider the role of queer populations in Myanmar political activism to emphasize the community’s desire for community and justice. Prior to the coup, activists felt hopeful about a future progressive LGBTQ+ legislation, and in 2019 the city of Yangon hosted a “Drag Queen Olympics” (Thet Su 2019). Post-coup, however, discussing or disseminating drag performances  is not only difficult, it is dangerous.

Here, we can establish that the queer community as a whole in Myanmar plays a key role in countering the ongoing violence occurring in the military state. Further, we can then question the specific role of drag in opposing oppressive regimes.

Drag Revolution in Authoritarian Contexts 

“Drag performers should be of interest to political science because they are community leaders, activists, issue leaders, celebrities, and often the target of significant political backlash” (Kammerer Jr., Michelson & Harrison 2025). Looking at Myanmar politics, drag by Myanmar performers or within Myanmar can be situated as an act of resistance against authoritarian governance. Under the military dictatorship, to be visibly queer is to risk imprisonment. Further, Burmese bodies engaging in drag are challenging colonial boundaries of drag: “drag becomes a moment to turn these violent projects on their heads, to wield these imperial histories for small, but not inconsequential gain” (Khubchandani 2023, 64). Performing drag of colour is a defiant act in opposition to wider global frameworks of injustice and Western-centrism which perpetuate Myanmar’s crises.

Studying drag in the Myanmar context is far from simple, as media rarely flows in or out, amongst heavy and arbitrary censorship. However, comparable political contexts can offer insight into the anti-authoritarian potential of drag. Castellano, Rios, and Ferreirinho (2022) present applicable evidence to how, within the Brazilian context, conservative governments take advantage of the highly visible performances of drag to engage in fear-mongering surrounding LGBTQ+ populations.

Moreover, Emi uses elements of Burmese culture in her drag performance as a revolutionary assertion of healing and comfort, in opposition to authoritarianism. Examining Emi’s performances, elements of Burmese fashion can be found. Emi speaks on this choice, saying “My gender exploration started with comfort seeking behaviour, like there’s a specific sense to my mother’s vanity with Thanaka (Burmese cosmetic cream shown in Figure 5) and the L’Oreal and Olay that she uses […] We think of drag

as, like hair, makeup, fashion because those are the clearest markers of gender. I also like to think of scent and texture as part of the gender experience.” Whilst authoritarianism “positively predicts antagonism toward rights for minority groups” (Miller et. al 2017), we can assert through the framework of Schechner (2020), that drag performance has the capacity to facilitate healing.

Imagining Myanmar Drag Futures

In Emi Grate’s performance, a desire to reconnect with Myanmar, and for the country to feel her persevering love for the culture and people is evident. After leaving Myanmar, Emi has had the ability to connect with and ignite passion in queer Southeast Asian communities across geographical zones. The potential of drag and performance to foster community is evidenced in her biography written by Tamar Sella, which states that Emi utilizes “her own upbringing and cultural background to validate and celebrate queerness” (Sella 2020).

Envisioning a future of anti-authoritarian drag in relation to Myanmar, drag can destabilize the future of colonial governance and oppression. Per Khubchandani (2023, 151), “drag can mobilize the aesthetics of gender, race, Indigeniety, class, and disability to recall and speak back to multiple and overlapping legacies of colonialism.” Drag is artful and adaptive, meaning it can morph to recognize and address the context its enactments operate in. Khubchandani (2023) further emphasizes that the play of decolonial drag makes evident the possibilities of a world beyond violence or injustice.

Conclusion

LGBTQ+ folks play a pivotal role in political movements within Myanmar’s military state, countering authoritarian violence and fighting for progressive policy and restoration of democratic governance. Further, Myanmar drag and drag within authoritarian states stands as performed acts of resistance, visibly refusing to be silenced. In the case of Emi Grate, since coming to the U.S. in 2011 and seeking asylum (Sella 2020), she continues to perform her calls for justice for Burma. Moreover, drag in/in relation to Myanmar has a future filled with potential for further community, unity, and justice-seeking. Ultimately, this research aims to express the capacity of drag to play a meaningful role in political resistance and constructing hope amongst authoritarianism.

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