Indonesia Is Not The Place For The Transgendered
The People Of Indonesia Refuse To Accept Transgenderism
On November 20, 2022 the world observed Trans Day Of Remembrance but what was most notable about this observance was the fact there was at least one country on Earth that didn’t participate in it.
That country was Indonesia.
Aside from the obvious religious implications in a country that is 87% Islamic (and all that it entails) the reason is rather simple: the people of Indonesia reject any notion that humans can change sex.
In short, the people of Indonesia can’t and won’t accept that trans people even exist.
In Indonesia, the very subject of trans people is taboo. A research poll released by Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC) in 2018 shows tremendous resistance to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Indonesian society. Based on the survey, 87.6 percent of Indonesians still perceive LGBT as a threat. Meanwhile, 10.8 percent have the opposite view.
The survey also captured this resistance as a reaction to religious teachings in Indonesia. That number reaches 81.5 percent of Indonesia's population. Meanwhile, another 8.6 percent held the opposite. "And this applies to all religions," said SMRC Communication Director Ade Armando.
To give you some idea the nearly zero chance that a transgendered person can be their “authentic self” here, it’s necessary to look at this through the prism of Islam as the religion with the most adherents in Indonesia.
There are currently 207 million Indonesians, or 87.2% of the country who practice Islam with Protestants at 6.9%. After Protestants, there are Catholics (2.9%), Hindus (1.7%), Buddhists (0.7%), and Confucians (also 0.7%).
Islamic law (sharia) regulates a number of cases related to transgender, homosexual or other “unusual” or “deviant” sexual behavior. In Islam, the term “transgender” in the study of sharia law can be associated with al-mukhannits - men who behave like women - and wal mutarajjilat --women who behave like men.
The Hadith History of Ahmad tells how the Prophet Muhammad once exiled and expelled transgender people from the city of Medina. Another story narrated by Ibn Abbas RA emphasizes how the Prophet Muhammad cursed transgender people. The hadith reads: “Indeed, the Prophet (s) cursed men who were mukhannits and women who were mutarajjilat.”
In 1999, Article 281 of the Indonesian Penal Code criminalized any person who “offends against decency” with a penalty of up to two years and eight months imprisonment, or a fine.
There is ample evidence of this law being used to criminalize transgender and gender diverse people.
In January, 2018 police raided several beauty salons in Aceh, arresting up to a dozen trans employees. They were accused of violating the province’s religious law. Some then had their hair forcibly shaved and were made to wear “male” clothing and speak in “masculine” voices in custody.
None of them were allowed to spend any time in the women’s holding cells.
Since 2019, foreign teachers have been required to answer questions relating both to their sexual orientation and their views on LGBT issues, under a 2015 government regulation prohibiting international schools from hiring foreign teachers with “an indication of abnormal sexual behavior or orientation.”
In 2018, Indonesia persuaded Google to pull 73 applications and shut down 169 websites related to the country’s LGBT community.
In 2017, Andalas University in West Sumatra asked prospective students to declare on a form that they are not lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender before applying and enrolling at the institution.
In July the same year, Anwar Abbas, a leader of Indonesia’s second-largest Muslim organization, Muhammadiyah, called for a boycott of Starbucks, saying that the international coffee chain’s pro-LGBT stance risks ruining the “religious and cultured” core of the Southeast Asian nation.
In December the same year, Front Line Defenders released a report that included testimonies from dozens of human rights defenders who report that following a crackdown on LGBT rights in 2016 and amidst ongoing violent raids of LGBT gatherings, threats against community leaders are increasingly frequent, personal, and violent.
And in 2020, it was reported in February that during the previous three years, Indonesians increasingly turned to exorcisms in an effort to “cure” members of the LGBT community. In some cases, such practices have been government-sponsored.
In January of 2020, following the conviction of Reynhard Sinaga of 159 sexual offences against 48 men in the UK – described as “the most prolific rapist in British legal history” – an Indonesian mayor, Mohammad Idris, called for anti-LGBT raids and other measures to prevent the “spread of LGBT”.
The people of Indonesia flatly reject transgenderism or anything related to LGBT as it’s not conducive to their society.
If you’re trans and think you’re going to start a trans rights movement here, don’t - you aren’t ever going to change these people’s minds.