Transwomen Hope for an End to Discrimination

KOMPAS/HARIS FIRDAUS

A number of waria attended a prayer together at the Al Fatah Waria Islamic Boarding School, Jagalan Village, Banguntapan District, Bantul Regency, Yogyakarta Special Region, Friday (22/7/2022).

Transwomen have long endured stigmatization and discrimination. They just want to be accepted by society.

JAKARTA, KOMPAS — Transwomen are part of our society. However, they struggle desperately to speak out about their existence, with the surrounding environment, communities, even their own families, still holding grudges against them.

Transwomen suffer from stigmatization and transphobia. Their rights as citizens are violated, making them marginalized in their own country.

Also read:

> The Story of Transwomen Walking the Light Path in Search of God

> For Trans Women’s Religious Right

During a discussion on the issue at the Kompas newsroom office in South Jakarta on Thursday (14/7/2022), Lenny Sugiharto (63), a transwoman who is also chairperson of the Srikandi Sejati Foundation (YSS), said that transwomen could generally be identified since childhood. Their physical shape looks male, yet they appear and behave like a female, she said.

Lack of acceptance from their families and the community result in many young transwomen dropping out of school. They are forced to leave the neighborhood for cities and end up living with senior transwomen. When they are able to earn a living, young transwomen will generally move out to live on their own and pay their own rent.

Without adequate formal education and work skills, they can only hope to scratch by with basic livelihoods, such as becoming street buskers. Some work at beauty salons, while others fall into prostitution.

The salons they work in are mostly those run by transwomen. Public salons tend to be reluctant to take transwomen, who were assigned male at birth but dress like a female as they grow up. In finding employees, they are more receptive to a feminine-behaving male who still dresses in male clothes.

Surabaya Transgender Association (Perwakos) chairperson Sonya Vanessa (62) said that despite being in their productive age, as the majority of the association’s 460 members were, employment opportunities were limited for them because of low education and strongly prevalent social stigmatization.

“Many transwomen in Surabaya work in salons. If they can’t find work in a salon, or are disinclined to become buskers, some choose to roam the streets as prostitutes,” Sonya said on Saturday (16/7).

KOMPAS/FERGANATA INDRA RIATMOKO

A number of transgender Christians take part in the worship service of the Prayer Fellowship in the Way of God's Light at a hotel in Yogyakarta, Friday (22/7/2022).

Eyang Erna (70), a transwoman from Kediri, East Java, said she had been wandering Yogyakarta urban area as a street busker for more than 25 years. She said work opportunity for transwomen was scarce mainly because of people’s stigma; they consider transwomen as “unclean”. “[You] can’t expect to work in an office, especially in the past. It is very difficult to do. So, the remaining choice is to work in “arts”, which is [becoming a busker] on the streets,” she said, while walking in a neighborhood under the Janti Flyover, Yogyakarta, on Wednesday night (20/7).

Street life is not easy. Transwomen often become victims of violence and government raids. “In fact, we happen to be transwomen. This is something given [from birth]," Erna said.

Being sex workers put transwomen at risk, with them becoming prone to sexually transmitted diseases, such as HIV, and falling victims to crime as well.

Betty (46), a transwoman works as a sex worker in East Jakarta, said transwomen had little knowledge about sexually transmitted diseases, and as a result, many were fatally infected with HIV.

“Many were infected with HIV because they were ignorant about condoms. It was difficult for them to seek treatment for fear of being discriminated against,” she said.

Generally being jobless and poor, having no family, no permanent residence and suffering from acute illness, they live their lives partly by depending on the mercy of society, she said.

Transwomen in Greater Jakarta, which includes the surrounding Bogor, Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi (known as Jabodetabek), are under the Indonesian Transwomen Communication Forum (FKWI), which is, according to chairperson Mami Yuli, home to around 4,000 transwomen, 831 of whom are elderly. Generally being jobless and poor, having no family, no permanent residence and suffering from acute illness, they live their lives partly by depending on the mercy of society, she said.

Struggle for social acceptance

Life is cruel for them, being abandoned by family and ignored by the surrounding environment. Many transwomen find it too hectic to live on their own; they become "less concerned" about matters related to public administration, such as the need to hold identity cards.

KOMPAS/FERGANATA INDRA RIATMOKO

A number of transgender Christians take part in the worship service of the Prayer Fellowship in the Way of God's Light at a hotel in Yogyakarta, Friday (22/7/2022).

"Transwomen generally live without identity [cards]," Lenny said. Although the government has an affirmation program to make it easier for transwomen to apply for an identity card (KTP), some of them feel disinclined because they would be required to list their gender on the card according to their sexual gender from birth, even though they are allowed to biometrically pose as a female.

"We just want to be accepted," Lenny said, adding that social acceptance would enable transwomen to work in broader scope and develop their potential and talents. She said they wanted to free themselves from the prevalent social conditions that trapped them in marginalized work with weak legal protection.

Because they often resort to high-risk jobs, transwomen are exposed to poor health conditions. Healthy Indonesia Partnership Foundation director Inang Winarso, who is also Indonesian Anthropology Association coordinator for the southern region (Java, Bali and Nusa Tenggara), said that transwomen were one of the community groups with high HIV transmission.

Their exposure to HIV infection was partly attributable to government and community’s negligence toward transwomen, who were viewed as akin to non-existent, he said. Their rights as citizens were violated or unfulfilled by the state -- the rights to education, work, a decent living, health, social welfare and religion.

"Transwomen are in dire conditions, because the supposedly accommodating public space is closed to them," he said.

There was no room for people to express gender outside the social boundaries.

Transwomen have been marginalized especially since the 1980s, when social genderism demanded that men had to be masculine and women had to be feminine. There was no room for people to express gender outside the social boundaries.

In fact, Indonesia had, by then, a bissu, a transwomen’s clergy in the Bugis tribe in South Sulawesi. During the ancient Javanese era, a number of transwomen were also appointed as palace servants for the king in various activities.

Three levels of discrimination

In the New Order era, transwomen were once accommodated under the wing of political organizations. Not only were they given space in political engagement, but their organizations were taken care of. The development of transwomen did not only use cultural but also structural paths.

"In the past, Indonesian transgender women were not in as bad a situation as they are now," Inang said.

RONY ARIYANTO NUGROHO

Transwomen receive services in managing E-KTP at the Office of Population and Civil Registration of Bogor City, Bogor City, West Java, Friday (26/11/2021).

He classified mistreatment of transwomen into individual, cultural and structural discrimination. At the individual level, he said, many transwomen suffer persecution by being evicted from their homes. At the cultural level, many transwomen found it difficult to carry out their religious activities.

Discrimination at the individual and cultural level, he said, must be resolved by the families and communities. The integration of transwomen into the community could create an inclusive society, he added.

Meanwhile, structural discrimination, he went on, made it difficult for transwomen to access education and decent work, with regulations that increasingly marginalize them. Discrimination can be overcome by an affirmative policy on the part of the government that seeks the fulfillment of the rights of transwomen citizens. (MZW/NIK/TAM/SKA/SON)

(This article was translated by Musthofid)