PETALING JAYA, Jan 24, 2015:
The transgender community in Malaysia is facing increasing barriers in day-to-day living, according to Dorian Wilde, an LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) activist and founder of Transmen of Malaysia (ToM).
He claimed the transgender community was being denied their fundamental rights to liberty, equality before the law, freedom of movement and expression as contained in the Federal Constitution.
Dorian alleged that the negative light cast on them by the mainstream media, politicisation of the transgender issue and what he called the growing Islamisation of Malaysia, were making life difficult for them by worsening the stigma.
The freelance project consultant was speaking at a forum titled “Human Rights and the Malaysian Trans Community: Challenges and Potentials” by Justice for Sisters and Projek Dialog at the Plaza Taragon here today.
“Transpeople are dehumanised. Transwomen face harassment everyday and they are manhandled and sexually harassed by authority figures as transmen are much less visible in Malaysia.
“For politicians, they think that the harsher you are towards transgender persons, the more positive they are viewed by Malaysians, but this is not right,” he said.
He explained that in the 80s, people in Malaysia were more open towards transgender and there were many clinics that operated gender change.
This was until a fatwa in 1983 that banned transgender surgeries and Muslim doctors were banned from performing such operations.
He added that human rights was universal and it was not just for white people, and the identification card was a big barrier.
“There is no law to say that people cannot change their identity marker. It cannot be denied to Asians or Muslims,” claimed Dorian, who is a transman himself.
Other panelists in the forum include lawyer activist Honey Tan, Dr Mohd Faizal Musa (Faisal Tehrani) who is Research Fellow at Institute of the Malay World and Civilization (ATMA) in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) and Bar Council Constitutional Law Committee chairperson Firdaus Husni.
Dorian said there was hope yet following the Court of Appeal’s decision on Section 66 of the Syariah Criminal (Negeri Sembilan) Enactment 1992.
The Court of Appeal on Nov 7 last year allowed the appeal by three bridal makeup artists to declare Section 66 as unconstitutional.
The state government had filed an appeal to the Federal Court against the decision.
Muhamad Juzaili Mohamad Khamis, 26; Syukor Jani, 28; and Wan Fairol Wan Ismail, 30, had challenged that it is unconstitutional for religious enactment to criminalise Muslim men who cross dress in public.
Tan said regardless of the eventual outcome on state government’s appeal to the Federal Court, the Court of Appeal’s decision was a huge victory for the transgender community.
“This is a mind shift for them in the sense that they do not have to accept laws which are against the Federal Constitution.
“The Court of Appeal’s decision will emboldened them to speak up against abuse and discrimination,” she said.
She also claimed that religious authorities were using religion to cling on to power by suppressing the secular rights of the people, as they were not supposed to question religion.
Meanwhile, Firdaus said the Court of Appeal’s decision was a pleasant surprise.
“It was very bold of the judges, but then again the Federal Constitution guarantees the right to freedom of speech and expression.
“Cross dressing under Syariah law is an offence in Islam, but the Federal Constitution is the ‘supreme law of the land’,” she said, adding that as long as justice is done, it should be deemed Islamic as justice is the core of Islam.
I am Scared to be a Woman, a Human Rights Watch report on human rights violations towards transgender persons in Malaysia, launched in September last year named Malaysia among the worst countries in the world for transgender person to live.
The reasons include systematic abuses of arbitrary arrests, sexual assault and extortion by both religious authorities and the police.
