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Not all people who make queer history do so for their contribution to bettering the world. Queerness and criminality have in fact gone hand in hand for centuries, whether because queer expression in any form was outright outlawed or simply because an individual’s queerness pushed them to struggle am

[Image Description: Black and white photo of Olive Yang, a Burmese woman, wearing a soldier's uniform with her army. She stands front and center. ]

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#queer history #lgbt history #olive yang

Olive Yang (deceased)

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Bisexual

DOB: 24 June 1927

RIP: 13 July 2017

Ethnicity: Chinese

Occupation: Drug lord, nun

Problematic but badass: At the age of 19, she organized ethnic Kokang forces, nicknamed the Olive's Boys, an army of over a thousand soldiers and consolidated control of opium trade routes from the highlands to lowlands. She dominated Kokang's opium trade from the end of World War II to the early 1960′s.

Note 1: In the late 1980s, she was recruited by Khin Nyunt to help broker ceasefires in Burma with ethnic rebel groups.

Note 2: She reportedly spent her final years as a nun.

#Olive Yang #Yang Kyin Hsiu #sapphic history #lgbt history #bisexual history #female #bisexual #1927 #rip #historical #chinese #asian #poc #drug lord #badass #problematic #nun #clergy #popular post

The Most Badass Eulogy Ever?

I am reading a post-death profile about Olive Yang, and HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS.

Sentence One:

She was born to royalty in British colonial Burma, but rejected that life to become a cross-dressing warlord whose C.I.A.-supplied army established opium trade routes across the Golden Triangle.

Okay, now THAT is a fucking lede. At least we know there’s no way sentence Two can out badass the first one...

By the time of her death, last week at 90, she had led hundreds of men, endured prison and torture, generated gossip for her relationship with a film actress and, finally, helped forge a truce between ethnic rebels and the government.

Wot.

Ms. Yang’s pursuit of a career as a militia leader and opium smuggler grew in part out of her desperation to escape traditional gender roles, her relatives said. “It was a temptation she couldn’t resist,” wrote her niece...

How

By age 25, she commanded hundreds of soldiers guarding caravans of raw opium on mules and trucks across the hills to the Thai border. Those trade routes served what would eventually become the world’s most productive opium-growing region...

Are

Intelligence dispatches at the National Archives in Yangon described her as a menace to the peace.

There

After her older brother Edward abdicated in 1959, along with dozens of other hereditary rulers in Shan state, Ms. Yang took control of his former army, becoming the de facto ruler of the territory.

Not

She also, according to her relatives, entered into a relationship with a Burmese movie actress, Wah Wah Win Shwe, lavishing her with gifts and adding her name to the deed of her house in Yangon.

Twenty

...the arrangement came to an abrupt end in 1963, when Ms. Yang was arrested by police officials under Gen. Ne Win, who had seized power in Burma the year before. She spent six years in Yangon’s Insein Prison, where she reportedly endured torture.

Zilion

...1989, when she was in her 60s. Retired as a warlord but respected among the ethnic rebel groups, Ms. Yang was recruited by the Burmese government’s chief of intelligence...

Documentaries

Confined to a wheelchair, Ms. Yang spent her twilight years in relative obscurity, living in the care of her stepson and his militiamen in a compound in Muse. Visited there not long after she had a stroke in 2015, Ms. Yang said she was happy to be living surrounded by deferential soldiers.

This

When shown a photograph of Ms. Win Shwe at her home, Ms. Yang responded with a knowing smile and a devilish laugh.

“It’s very sad for all of Kokang,” said the former soldier, Liu Guoxi, reached by phone as he was preparing for the funeral. “We have all come to say farewell to our leader.”

Amazing

Like just Damn. God Damn. God Fucking Damn.

I feel like I need a cigarette just reading that quick biographical summarization.

Anyway

Whole article is here at the New York Times.

Also,

DAMN.

#olive yang #olive MOTHERFUCKING yang #genderqueer lesbian warlord princess anti-hero #THIS is at LEAST 5 levels above Xena Warrior Princess except IN REAL LIFE #!!!!!!!!!!!

Born to royalty in Burma, Olive Yang, who died last week at 90, rejected her birthright to become a cross-dressing warlord and opium trafficker.

I thought this was a plot for a movie. But no. Olive Yang routinely had crushes on her brothers’ love interests so her family married her off to a younger cousin. Once she got pregnant she rAN AWAY and became a warlord. She named her son after the jeep. She dressed live a man and had an affair with an actress and sounds terrifying.

#myanmar #Olive Yang #my life is so boring and I am really glad for that #but it's so interesting to know that this sort of thing happened #although frankly she sounds terrifying #considering she used CIA arms to build her army and was known for torture #the CIA funded her because fear of communism

Olive Yang is one of those people whose wikipedia entries make me go... I mean, read for yourself (condensed entry below)

Olive Yang (Yang Kyin Hsiu) was the half-sister of the saopha (chief) of Kokang, a state in post-independent Burma from 1949 to 1959. At the age of 19, she organized ethnic Kokang forces, nicknamed the Olive's Boys, an army of over a thousand soldiers and consolidated control of opium trade routes from the highlands to lowlands. She dominated Kokang's opium trade from the end of World War II to the early 1960s. In the 1950s, after the Nationalist defeat and their subsequent expulsion from mainland China, she partnered with the Kuomintang to establish opium trade routes along the Golden Triangle (Southeast Asia).

From the 1950s to the mid-1960s, she was the commander of the Kokang Kakweye (People's Defense Forces). She was a prominent figure in opium trafficking and gold trading. She was arrested in 1962, along with her brother Jimmy, a member of parliament in Yangon, by Burmese authorities, to remove them from power and place Kokang territory under Burmese administration.

Yang was known to be a bisexual who carried on affairs with film actresses and singers, including Wah Wah Win Shwe (ဝါဝါဝင်းရွှေ). In the late 1980s, she was recruited by Khin Nyunt to help broker ceasefires in Burma with ethnic rebel groups.

After her release, she reportedly spends her final years as a nun.

#olive yang #yang kyin hsiu #the ape eclectic #may be my tag for 'fascinating real life figures'#rambl #so...... much.......... executive......... fucnitnsdofn

[Image Description: Black and white photo of Olive Yang, a Burmese woman, wearing a soldier's uniform with her army. She stands front and center.]