‘Being young and LGBT, what could be worse?’ Analysis of youth LGBT activism in Indonesia: challenges and ways forward

ABSTRACT

Young Indonesian LGBT people are currently mobilising against a wave of conservatism and violence in an increasingly anti-LGBT context. Young LGBT people are showing remarkable courage and strategic thinking and mobilising in a range of ways. These include grassroot peer support, advocacy, and partnerships with government, adult-led non-government organisations and the private sector. However, these youth also face multiple challenges. This article highlights findings from a 2016 study of mobilisation by youth LGBT activists, using in-depth feminist qualitative research methods. The aim of the research was to highlight the resilience of young LGBT people in Indonesia, the barriers they face, and to consider what feminists and development policymakers and practitioners can do to support them.

Les jeunes LGBT indonésiens se mobilisent à l’heure actuelle contre une vague de conservatisme et de violence dans un contexte de plus en plus anti-LGBT. Les jeunes LGBT font preuve d’un courage et d’une pensée stratégique remarquables, et se mobilisent de plusieurs manières, comme par exemple le soutien entre pairs au niveau de la base populaire, les activités de plaidoyer, et des partenariats avec le gouvernement, des ONG dirigées par des adultes et le secteur privé. Cet article met en relief les conclusions d’une étude effectuée en 2016 sur la mobilisation des jeunes activistes LGBT à l’aide de méthodes de recherche qualitatives féministes approfondies. Ces recherches entendaient mettre en relief la résilience des jeunes LGBT en Indonésie et les barrières auxquelles ils se heurtent, et réfléchir à ce que les féministes et les décideurs et praticiens de développement peuvent faire pour les soutenir.

En un contexto cada vez más adverso para las personas lgbt, actualmente los jóvenes indonesios lgbt se encuentran movilizados para enfrentar la ola de conservadurismo y violencia. Además de poseer una notable valentía, dichos jóvenes ostentan un pensamiento estratégico encaminado a diversificar las maneras de movilizarse. Las modalidades de movilización incluyen la búsqueda del apoyo de sus pares a nivel de base, la realización de acciones de incidencia, así como la creación de alianzas con el gobierno, las ong administradas por adultos y el sector privado. A la vez, los jóvenes enfrentan varios desafíos. A partir de la aplicación de métodos de investigación a profundidad, cualitativos y feministas, el presente artículo destaca las conclusiones obtenidas por un estudio realizado en 2016 sobre la movilización de jóvenes activistas lgbt. Dicho estudio se propuso hacer hincapié en la resiliencia de los jóvenes lgbt de Indonesia y los obstáculos que deben enfrentar, analizando, además, qué deben hacer las feministas, los formuladores de políticas de desarrollo y los operadores para apoyarlos.

KEYWORDS:

• LGBT
• Indonesia
• youth activism
• feminist analysis
• violence

Notes on contributors

Rinaldi Ridwan is a youth activist in the field of sexual and reproductive health and rights both in Indonesia and internationally, and a Research Assistant at the University of Sydney. Email: [email protected]

Joyce Wu is a Research Fellow at the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University. Postal address: Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, J. G. Crawford Building, 132 Lennox Crossing, Acton, ACT 2601, Australia. Email: [email protected]

Notes

1 We use the term ‘LGBT’ in our research and this article because this is the term most commonly used in Indonesia, but the wider identity of LGBTQI is used also in the country by some groups.

2 ARROW is a regional non-profit women’s organisation based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Further information about ARROW can be accessed at http://arrow.org.my (last checked 19 December 2017).

3 Currently, there is much controversy regarding feminism and transgender, with allegations that feminists (in particular, radical feminists) are discriminatory towards trans-people. We believe this is a debate worth delving into, and it is important not to treat radical feminism or feminism as a homogenous category. For instance, in Women Hating, lesbian and radical feminist Andrea Dworkin (1974) paved the way for a fluid conceptualisation of sexuality by arguing that heterosexuality and the cultural definitions of masculinity and femininity serve to normalise patriarchal order, the latter of which is disrupted and threatened by transsexuality, and that ‘every transsexual has the right to survival on his/her own terms’ (ibid., 186). For Dworkin, the way to end the two-sex category is androgyny, so that ‘[e]ither the transsexual will be able to expand his/her sexuality into a fluid androgyny, or, as roles disappear, the phenomenon of transsexuality will disappear and that energy will be transformed into new modes of sexual identity and behaviour’ (ibid., 187).

4 The term ‘cisgender’, according to Aultman (2014), is a contested term which emerged from trans* activist discourses in the 1990s that criticised many commonplace ways of describing sex and gender. Further, if used appropriately, it helps in distinguishing diverse sex/gender identities without reproducing unstated norms associated with cisness. However, some argue that it still retains some of the normalising implications that ‘nontransgender’ possessed and this reinforces the difference of ‘transness’ (Enke, cited in Aultman 2014).