Myanmar spirit festival draws LGBTQ mediums amid war

Myanmar’s Taungbyone Festival drew spirit mediums and thousands of worshippers near Mandalay this week, giving many transgender women and other LGBTQ people a rare public space as the country’s civil war continues.

The mediums, known as nat kadaws or “spirit consorts,” renew vows to Burmese Nats, divine ghosts from an older folk religion that is practised alongside Buddhism. Devotees ask the spirits for protection, luck and help with personal hardships.

The war that followed the military’s 2021 coup had sharply reduced the festival in 2024 and 2025. Fighting is now farther from Mandalay, though pro-government militias still describe the area as a “black zone” marked by war.

Homosexuality is criminalised in Myanmar, and the festival is considered by many participants to be an unofficial Pride celebration. Most of the mystics are transgender women or other marginalised LGBTQ minorities.

ACLED, an organisation that monitors media reports of conflict, estimates that more than 100,000 people have died violently across all sides since the coup. Mandalay was also among the places hit by a magnitude-7.7 earthquake in 2025 that killed nearly 4,000 people, mostly in Mandalay.

Some attendees described the festival as spiritual comfort after years of conflict. Medium Win Hlaing said Nats are “like medicines” because each is believed to have a different power.