There are articles that’s recently released about the LGBT Community in Jakarta, Indonesia. People are starting to discuss the topic on whether it is in a positive or negative way. There are discriminations towards the LGBT Community according to the organization “Arus Pelangi.” The Indonesian Psychiatric Association is also divided into two regarding the topic on whether being LGBT is an illness that should be treated or not. Also, the idea of accepting and integrating of the LGBT citizens in Indonesians daily life whether it’s in college, work, family, traveling or in the media. There’s major conflict between Indonesians vs. the LGBT Community.
When asking Ponti in respect to his future plans, he stated, “Well I’m 29, so I’m in that age where I’m still deciding ‘Should I have a family? Should I have a kid?’ At the end if I decide I’m going to adopt a kid or have a kid, then yeah I’ll consider to leave somewhere overseas or at least Bali.”
Being gay and to start a family in the future seems like it’s out of reach unless if person leaves Indonesia and seek an LGBT friendly country. Indonesians still believe that same sex couples should not have children and that it’s best if children are raised by opposite gendered parents. This is not the fact as countries such as the USA and Canada have accepted the LGBT Community; they legalized adoption, artificial insemination, and same sex marriage.
The next day, Arus Pelangi was interviewed, a woman named Ajeng Kartika, a member of the organization shared her story, “I’m Ajeng, I identify as a transgender. When I was young, I feel that I’m a woman. Although I played with my guy friends, played soccer, played tag your it, and be treated as a boy by my family. But I still feel that I’m a girl. It’s from an early age that I feel like I’m a girl. Although I’m treated as a boy and played with my guy friends. Overtime, I feel that I’m a woman. After my family knows that, my family feel and thought that there’s an abnormality in me as I feel like a woman. Then they try to enroll me in a pesantren. But after I got into the pesantren, I felt like I received oppression such as sexual harassments and so forth. I feel that this is not right if I continued to be there. I tried to tell to my family what I felt, I feel that indeed, it’s true that I have a penis but I feel that I’m a woman. I cannot do this continuously. Now, since then, I never wanted to be treated as a man. I only wanted to be treated as a woman.”
Ines Cintya from Arus Pelangi shared her discrimination story based on her campus and experiences as a transgender woman in Indonesia, “Discrimination amongst the transgender community is very high. Especially, when I’m in campus. Joining a discussion, my fellow scholars and lecturers. When I enter the campus. For example, they look at us and wonder why there’s transgender people in campus. That really makes it uncomfortable. Because why? College is a place for people to study. But there, I received discrimination that’s very striking, in my opinion. Until now, I’m more likely to choose to cut my hair because it makes it easier for me to enter the campus. As a result, there’s no more discrimination because our goal is to study right. Secondly, when we want to access public service. For instance, such as to ride the train, transgender that want to fly on the plane. When they enter to check in or boarding, people still look at us as if we are strange. Well, actually when people want to see its a transgender, well alright. You don’t have to look at us for 5 minutes or more than 5 minutes. In fact, that doesn’t make people feel comfortable If you want to see someone’s expression, you can just look at a glance. But sometimes, when they see a transgender, they really view us from top to bottom. So there’s many discrimination towards the transgender community.”
Yuli Rustinawati is the leader of Arus Pelangi and an LGBT advocate, she stated, “Indonesia just view it as different sex, woman and a man. While the issue of gender identity, it cannot be included. This becomes a problem for the transgender community. Where there’s more than 60% of them. Especially for a transgender woman with high mobility. From one region to another. Beyond that, also now they receive domestic violence from their family. After they see that their gender is very different. Then, there’s also violence in school, transgender people cannot enjoy or continue their studies in school. When their gender expression is different than their sex than their sex that they were born in. Then their families don’t accept it, there’s plenty of violence. Whether or not they want to, they need to runaway. Now that is how they rarely save their identity paperworks or birth certificate, now that becomes a problem as well. After I finish college, Arus Pelangi is my job, I became an LGBT advocate. So you don’t need to apply for a job. That’s why I previously said that I’m one of the most lucky people. But not within the last two years though. Last year, from January to July, there were about 186 incidents starting from sexual violence, dismissal from work, and being expelled. They dissolved a lot of LGBT discussions. The culprit is also an intolerant group, this included the country and media. In the context of work dismissal also happened, we don’t have a specific data as a lot of LGBT people are afraid because this is regarding their life. For the last 10 years, we keep on hearing reports from our community. They said I was fired because I’m gay, but we cannot take any actions as those that reports to us only wants to tell their stories. One of the cases that happens in South Sulawesi, there’s a Limited Liability Company that has a rule in the company that doesn’t allow people to dress as an opposite gender. Man can’t dress like woman, woman can’t dress like man or different gender expression than that was assigned since birth. A person is not allowed to wear what they wanted during work or outside of work. So, these companies have started to commit all these discrimination towards the LGBT Community or maybe, they might not even be LGBT and it’s their gender expression. So, it’s starting to be more structural on the violence towards the LGBT Community. Structural from family, this is homework, that there’s still violence in family at times. Then Indonesian citizens, then the country takes action by the number of discriminatory policies in a level of village, district, province, or national level in Indonesia. According to our data in 2013, 9 out of 10 of us goes through violence.”
Zoya Amirin, a clinical Psychologist discussed about the LGBT Community in Indonesia and how people approach it. She stated that Indonesians think that transgendered people are dramatic and are seeking attention. When Zoya tried to explain to people, they still didn’t understand. She commented that being transgender is not a choice and that talking to people, trying to explain it is “one hell of a job” according to her. She tried to take them from their perspective and that people don’t really learn how to process their feelings. If someone is coming out as gay or a lesbian, then it’s hard for their family and friends to accept it. And people actually think that bisexuals are gay in disguised. She also mentioned that both the the people who are coming out and their parents, family or friends struggle to process their feelings. Zoya said, “they are still the same person that’s born and become a family member but most people that I’ve interviewed and up in my counseling couches, they just said ‘I feel like I fail as a parent when I have a kids that are actually a lesbian or gay.'” In the media, Zoya explained that in Indonesian television, being transgender is also less accepted now since the LGBT movement. The media felt that they gave too much freedom on TV. She thinks that this is against humans rights and people just behave accordingly to keep their job on TV. She said, she’s only ‘one voice’, most people don’t want to be too strong against it because you become a minority. If your not a part of something major, if your just a minority, the message seems like you better be quite.