The Offences Against the Person Act 1861 lowered the maximum penalty to life imprisonment. Subsequent laws, such as The Labouchere Amendment (Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885) redefined the offence and allowed for other punishments, for example Oscar Wilde was sentenced to two years hard labour in 1895, and in 1952 Alan Turing was chemically castrated. Female homosexuality and sexual acts were not addressed in the law, and therefore, they technically would have been legal, though the law often applied the law towards women.

Section 377 of Myanmar's Penal Code states: "Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal shall be punished with transportation for life, or with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine."

From roughly 1860s to 1993 it was illegal to serve in the military as a open gay male/ lesbian female due to 1861 act criminalizing homosexual relations of any kind, please see homosexual activity.

The Offences Against the Persons Act, 1861 made “buggery” an offence punishable by penal servitude. Under the section “Unnatural Offences”, the Act read: “Whosoever shall be convicted of the abominable crime of buggery, committed either with mankind or with any animal shall be liable … to be kept in penal servitude for life.”

Under colonial era statutes, homosexuality is illegal in Myanmar with up to 20 years in prison. Torture and vigilante executions are also common.

Same sex marriage is not legal

Male homosexuality is technically punishable with life imprisonment but is rarely enforced.