This
is the second week (4/8/2012) that Ourvoice played a movie about LGBT
in Ramadhan hence last week, Saturday (28/07/2012) played a movie about
gays and lesbians in the eyes of Islam in ‘Jihad for love’ thus this
week Ourvoice not only played one, but two movies. “Lipstik” about the
life of a transgender living in the society with a foster son named
Kekah who brought up religiously and started to questioned the
proportion of his faith for having a transgender parent and the second
movie is a documentary “Cinta itu Budi” about Cinta, a transgender who
is uniquely stand out from any transgender in majority, without having a
blush of makeup nor high heels but she epitomized the word beautiful in
her own way, the documentary vividly tells her story from her friend’s
opinion, and her life as a faithful Muslim yet living as a transgender.
Ourvoice
invited three speakers for discussing the movie after breaking the
fast, the first speaker is Jen Katleya, a faithful devotee of Muslim, a
hijab-wearer transgender from Bogor, the second one is Dewi Nova, a
poet, a writer, and the founder of Perempuan Berbagi, last but not least
Lia Toriana, graduated from University of Indonesia majoring in
political science.
Jen
shared her opinion about the movie “Lipstik” that Muslim scholars
provoked his mass to act anarchist which is not entitled in Islam which
claims that the religion brings grace that God is all gracious and
merciful. She criticized a part of the movie when a Muslim scholar
mentioned that God created day and night, black and white, male and
female thus transgender is against nature, “then who who created the
transgender if not God himself? and in between day and night there are
dusk and dawn, between black and white there are grey and other color
gradation” said Jen.
In
terms of ‘against nature’, Jen wittily asked why women who have pale
lips colorized them with lipstick, “so to speak, circumcision is also
against nature” added Jen.
The
second speaker, Dewi Nova, enlightens the participants about gender,
that sexuality is constructive, can be molded, and attached to
hierarchy. How the religious interpretation on transgender will show us
that it has a strong dependence on politics, religion, and economics,
“thus it will put us to a place where gender is liquid” explained Dewi.
According
to Dewi sexuality is uncategorized but we must understand the meaning
of political identity therefore the government will know what are the
needs for gay, lesbian and transgender.
The
last speaker Lia explained the audience about ‘politics or the
politicization of the body’, similar with gender our body also
influenced by politics, and determined what is good and bad, and
constructed how we look on what is beautiful.
“Beauty
is painful” according to Josep, a thirty something gay man from Bogor,
after he saw a picture of a woman wearing high heels with veins popping
out from her legs.
“Beauty
is in the eye of the beholder” explained Djohan, 27, according to him
beauty only exist in the minds of people who valued beauty which are
differ from people to people.
On
the last session, Diana, one of the audience shared a story how people
in some part of Indonesia are powerless against this type of politics,
“it is excruciatingly painful to see a woman on the edge of death but
prohibited to have a blood transfusion because they said it is haram or
illegitimate, it is our body and we have every rights on every inch of
it” said Diana.
Discrimination
on sexuality and gender are systematic, every elements are linked due
in today’s political condition the transgender are the most vulnerable
because they are easily seen from their appearance but what was seen
does not represents the true form of reality, a couple of transgender
standing in the pitch dark of night living as a sex worker does not
purportedly means all transgender are sex workers, some works in a
beauty parlor, while some will do anything to stay survive. It will be a
different story if they were given the chance to work in the formal
sector, the governments are obligated to wipe out the prejudice as
written on the constitution that every citizen has the right to obtain a
decent education and a decent job, after all the transgender are also a
tax payer.
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