#not something you want to project modern conceptions of LGBT identity upon

[prolibytherium]

Absolutely death gripped clenched trying not to comment on reductive posts on ancient greek homosexual relationships

#It is neither wholly '0mg two gay guys in love!!' and 'I am humiliating and debasing a lower man by making a woman out of him' #There's heavy elements of that in how they conceptualized penetrator vs penetrated but the erastes (lover/protector) and eromenos (beloved) #relationship was significantly more complex than that #Like it is conceptualized as sort of a mentor/mentee relationship and a positive element for an adolescent's development #It was the subject of romantic plays and you get things like people in antiquity in heated debates over who is the #erastes and who is the eromenos between Achilles and Patroclus (to better depict them in plays) #The bottom line is more 'the socially accepted m/m relationships were (what we would now consider) an adult and a child #(or young man) with the age difference being a fundamental element to the dynamic.' #And more broadly being penetrated in sex assigned a 'lower' or 'womanly' role and it would not be conventionally accepted #for an older/more socially powerful man to recieve penetration (which certainly DID happen though) #So absolutely a moment in the history of male homosexuality and not something to just go 'ew ew bad evil ewwie' about but also #not something you want to project modern conceptions of LGBT identity upon #Also we know relatively little about relationships between women in ancient Greece due to lack of sources due to being a #highly patriarchal culture but we can't actually know that they did not involve similar power dynamic #Certainly not to the same extent or in such a well socially defined way (bc they conceptualize sex almost entirely through a lens of #penetration) but I think you should be treating relations between ancient Greek women with the same degree of #historical distance from our lives and identities today. #Ok death grip failed I just typed an entire rant. Fiuck it

[whittlebaggett8]

Is There Room for Transgender Rights in the ‘New Malaysia’?

Nisha Ayub is a transgender woman who defends the legal rights of her neighborhood with an extraordinary strength. In truth, when you know her, it is really hard to think that, in the earlier, she tried out to consider her have life.

All over 19 several years in the past, when she was 21, Nisha was sent to a men’s jail for three months for wearing women’s dresses to match her gender id. Which is a criminal offense under the rigorous Sharia laws in Malaysia, which make it unlawful when “a male dresses or functions like a woman.” In prison, she faced tough times, including getting assaulted by the jail director and some other inmates.

When she was introduced, Nisha started the SEED Foundation (or Pertubuhan Kebajikan dan Persekitaran Positif Malaysia) and the collective Justice for Sisters in purchase to guard transgender folks and check out to adjust the legislation that goal them. In 2016, she became the initially transgender woman to get the prestigious U.S. “International Lady of Courage” award, getting to be the inspiration of several other folks.

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Nisha stated that transgender people today in Malaysia are often residing with worry. “Can you think about being worried each working day when you depart household simply because you can be arrested and go to jail? Believe me, the prisons in this article are horrible,” she stated in her business office at the SEED Basis. It is located in a person of the most marginal neighborhoods of Kuala Lumpur, wherever she receives all the people today who look for her information and enable.

Trans people today in Malaysia are noticed as “deviants” who stay in opposition to the norms of society. Government officers and many spiritual leaders have fueled transphobia and homophobia for many years. Even previous Prime Minister Najib Razak claimed that LGBT people today (referring to lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender persons) are enemies of Islam, along with liberalism and pluralism.

The social influence of Islam proceeds to mature. Even nevertheless Malaysia is a secular place, the constitution grants states the authority to define crimes and punishments for Muslims in issues that are not coated by the federal law. This implies that Muslims, who signify all around 60 per cent of the population, are judged underneath Sharia, or Islamic regulation, which criminalizes transgender people today.

In concept, Sharia applies only to Muslims, but in follow, its principles can most likely impact the broader populace as very well. People today of other religions can also be arrested under a imprecise provision that prohibits “public indecency.”

Just one of the repercussions is that trans individuals have missing their most primary legal rights and are getting much more and extra complications. For instance, beforehand transgender persons could undertake gender reassignment operation, but soon after the introduction of a fatwa (a spiritual edict) relating to intercourse adjustments, couple of surgeons are eager to offer this services.

People today who want to endure this procedure have to leave the region, and for numerous of them, the cost is simply prohibitive. Even for people who undertake the cost, upon their return to Malaysia, they are nevertheless not acknowledged mainly because they can not modify the sex on their id paperwork. This challenge accompanies them for lifestyle when it arrives to seeking for function, opening a lender account, or dwelling in modern society additional commonly.

The governing administration in Malaysia altered in 2018, when the opposition defeated for the to start with time the political coalition that experienced remained in electric power for 6 decades. Hopes have been high for a “New Malaysia” marked by larger regard for human legal rights. But the activists consulted for this story feel that the legal rights of transgender individuals have not enhanced at all – and have arguably gotten even worse.

Phil Robertson, deputy director for Asia of the organization Human Rights Enjoy, claimed that this is simply because “ministers are actively hoping to protect themselves from political assaults by the opposition UMNO and PAS parties, who assert the government is supporting LGBT folks. “

The consequence, he mentioned, “has been a immediate, aggressive de-escalation of any type of respect or tolerance of LGBT rights in Malaysia. LGBT teams are now not welcome to satisfy with government ministers, the primary minister refuses to regard rights for LGBT persons, and the tourism minister goes just one phase additional by publicly claiming this sort of people really do not exist in the state.”

In addition, in September two gals, aged 32 and 22, gained 6 lashes for getting sexual intercourse with each and every other.

Thilaga Sulathireh, researcher at the Justice for Sisters collective, shared Robertson’s tips. She claimed that the present-day government’s views in relation to transgender men and women are “a continuation of the previous administration’s policy, which experienced released a 5-calendar year govt motion system to handle some ‘social ills’ [including LGBT identities].”

Thilaga explained that this project focuses on several plans: rehabilitation (with treatment readily available for transgender individuals), prevention (with seminars for parents and friends), and compliance with guidelines (prohibiting the “glamorization” of their life-style publicly). In common, the federal government feels that LGBT people need to return to the “right path,” conform to binary types, and suppress their sexuality.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry offers the 2016 Global Gals of Courage Award to Nisha Ayub at the U.S. Section of Condition in Washington, D.C., March 29, 2016. State Department image.

Regardless of the issues, Nisha has managed her struggle more than the yrs. Her firm, the SEED Basis, has come to be a area free of discrimination for several transgender people today, in which they obtain counseling, overall health care, and schooling.

From the collective Justice for Sisters, Nisha and her colleagues are accomplishing predominantly advocacy. On some situations, they also raise money to finance court circumstances that have been filed towards trans people who have been accused by the Sharia courtroom.

In 2014, the collective accomplished a extraordinary feat when the Courtroom of Appeals upheld the group’s legal problem to a state Sharia regulation, ruling that it was discriminatory and unconstitutional. But a person 12 months later on, the Federal Court docket reversed the ruling, a important setback for the legal rights of transgender men and women.

Nisha also believes that her recognition as a “woman of courage” has assisted both her and the group in lots of strategies: “Internationally, mainly because they have under no circumstances prior to awarded a transsexual human being. Domestically, mainly because in Malaysia quite a few persons commenced conversing about it and wanted to have more facts about us.”

She explained that what moves her to do her task is the wish to aid her local community: “When I hear to their tales, I believe I should really to something. I imagine that my strength comes from the aid I have gained from them. I will constantly do advocacy mainly because this is my enthusiasm.”

Ana Salvá is a freelance journalist based mostly in Southeast Asia.

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