The Development of an LBT Movement in Indonesia: Post-reformasi Identity Politics

Abstract

After the fall of the military dictator General Suharto in 1998 there came a certain openness in society, also about sexual issues. In this chapter, I focus on three organizations of LBT female-bodied persons, Swara Srikandi, Sektor 15 of the KPI (Indonesian Women's Coalition) and the Ardhanary Institute. New identities and subjectivities emerged besides the b/f couples which was the dominant model in the previous period: no-label lesbians, transmen, and priawan. By the end of 2015, a campaign of virulent homophobia emerged.

Introduction

After the era of Reformasi (Reformation) was ushered in, civil society began to expand in Indonesia. During the preceding repressive New Order government of President Suharto (1966–1998) human rights were severely curtailed. The focus of this chapter is on the distinctive path the LBT movement took, both in relation to the male-dominated gay rights movement and to a Western trajectory of sexual rights.¹ The LBT movement, whose members belong to one of the most invisible communities in Indonesia, grew to include activists with a broader range of identities than the previous largely binary butch-femme groups.

Between 1998 and 2015 the movement underwent its greatest transformation; after that year a vicious backlash set in. In this chapter the movement is discussed as rooted in regional and local histories and cultures, in which activists developed a growing consciousness as members of a broad community, negotiating selfhood, and meanings of sexuality and gender as contingent and fluid. Attention will be paid to the apparent paradox that while gender diversity is well documented in the region and in Indonesia itself, and still accepted in some parts, homosexuality is stigmatized and increasingly criminalized.

Not only did human rights organizations flourish, but hard-line Muslim vigilante organizations also thrived in this new climate of openness. The notorious Islamic Defenders’ Front (Front Pembela Islam, FPI), loudly proclaimed lesbian and gay activists as immoral, out to convert the nation’s youth to homosexuality. Around 2010 their actions became openly hostile and the conference of ILGA (International Lesbian and Gay Association) Asia, which was held in Surabaya, was violently disrupted by FPI members (Wijaya & Davies, 2019; Yulian, 2012).

In this chapter, I focus on three organizations of LBT persons, Swara Srikandi, Sektor 15 of the KPI and the Ardhanary Institute. The expansion of the LBT movement was accompanied by a proliferation of identities that women-loving-women assumed. Beside the b/f couple, the dominant model during the New Order, no-label lesbians, transmen, translaki-laki, priawan and people adopting other labels appeared.² Before the democratic opening of society some of them rejected this association for they were men and not lesbians. How did the availability of the discursive category of trans make it possible for masculine-identified persons to associate themselves with the LBT movement?

Southeast Asian Gender Diversity

The great ethnic, religious, and cultural diversity of Southeast Asia also translates into a variety of gender regimes, both in the precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial societies.³ An interesting cross regional feature dating from precolonial times is the existence of crossdressing and transgendered ritual specialists. These mostly male-bodied healers or shamans have been widely documented both in Hindu, Buddhist and pre-Islamic societies. There is less known about crossdressing female-bodied persons, but they also existed (Blackwood, 2005; Clarence-Smith, 2012; Peletz, 2009; Van der Kroef, 1954; Wieringa, 2012). It was often said they were born in one body but had the soul of the other gender.⁴ Their partners were generally considered to be heterosexual cisgendered persons. In many communities in the region women held positions of more power and respect than they are accorded now (Andaya, 2006). The legitimacy and respect enjoyed by the transgendered healers and women’s political and economic power declined during the colonial period⁵ and with the growing dominance of monotheistic religions.⁶ Postcolonial leaders tried to revive some of the assumed glory of precolonial times, but they conveniently ignored the relative prestige women in general and transgender individuals had enjoyed. This process of postcolonial amnesia maintained the colonial bourgeois morality, with its at times homophobic and women-oppressive ethics (Pallotta-Chiarolli, 2020; Wieringa, 2009).

Yet in many countries in the region, transgendered individuals have survived. In Malaysia transgender MTF (Male to Female) persons are called pondan or mak nyah, while crossdressing FTM (Female to Male) people are known as tomboys or transmen (Peletz, 2009; Teh, 2002). In Buddhist Thailand MTF kathoey are widely known while women’s same-sex couples are often divided into toms and dees (Aldous and Sereemongkongkonpol, 2008; Jackson, 2003; Jackson & Sullivan, 1999; Käng, 2012; Sinnott, 2004). The Catholic Philippines knows a category of MTF transgendered persons called bakla or babaylan (Garcia, 1996). Ritual specialists in Burma are called nat kadaw; most of them are transgendered FTM persons (Peletz, 2009). Indonesia also has a rich tradition of both male- and female-bodied transgender healers or spiritual specialists, like the bissu in South Sulawesi and the manang among the Iban and Ngayu Dayak.⁷ Lay transgendered persons were also common, called banci and wandu and nowadays waria, transpuan or priawan in Indonesia.⁸ Across the region binary patterns have been and still are quite common in women’s same-sex relations as well, besides the toms and dees in Thailand, the Philippines and Malaysia also know tomboys and their feminine partners. The word tomboi is also known in Indonesia, besides local terms (Blackwood, 2010; Wieringa, 1999).

Colonial legislation had various effects. The British imposed their so-called ‘sodomy law’ on the regions they colonized, criminalizing male homosexuality. Dutch law only penalized sex with minors. Thai law never criminalized homosexuality. Christian influence led to efforts to ‘civilize’ the people they thought had succumbed to the ‘depravity’ of their sexual and erotic transgressive practices. Islam which when it arrived in the region accepted several transgendered practices, became increasingly repressive as modernist forces came into power who wanted to purify the religion (Davies, 2010; Peletz, 2009). By independence in many Southeast Asian countries transgender practices had been discredited and their practitioners had lost much of the spiritual and sacred significance they once had. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, transgenderism has been secularized and stigmatized, even pathologized, in line with the theories newly introduced by the Western sexologists and spread to the colonial world.

Though traditional transgender persons are still present in Southeast Asian countries, particularly MTF persons, homosexuality is viewed negatively and non-heteronormative people are faced with stigma. In spite of these striking similarities across the region, and the uneven influence of Western discourses on LGBT rights, it is evident that local gender regimes have to be studied in their specific historical and cultural contexts.

Combined data from the World Values Survey indicates that many Southeast Asians reject lesbians or gay men as neighbours, with the most homonegative attitudes to be found in Myanmar (91%), Vietnam (76%) Indonesia (74%) and Malaysia (60%), compared to relatively less rejecting nations like Thailand (36%), Singapore (26%) and the Philippines (18%).⁹ Same-sex sexuality was least acceptable, based on a moral justifiability measure, among Indonesians, followed by Vietnamese and Malaysians. Singaporeans, Thais, and Filipinos were the least rejecting of lesbian and gay sexual orientations in the region (Manalastas & al., 2017).

Legal regimes on same-sex practices vary widely. Homosexuality is criminalized in Southeast Asia in four former British colonies, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, and Myanmar. In Brunei Sharia law came into effect in 2013 which stipulated the death penalty for homosexuality.¹⁰ In Aceh homosexuality is illegal under a regional regulation. In all countries, discrimination against LGBTIQ people, as well as domestic and public violence remains high. LGBTIQ people especially transgender women, and gay and trans sex workers face high levels of stigma and harassment. LBT people are confronted with high levels of family violence and rejection (Agustine & Yolandasari, 2021; Yolandasari, 2015). No country in the region has a sexual orientation and gender identity protections as part of their constitution. Only Thailand and the Philippines have either local level or national level laws on anti-discrimination (Outright International, 2023).

Socio-Historical and Political Context; from 1965 till 2015

The beginning of the New Order period, the transition between the presidency of Indonesia’s first President, Sukarno and General Suharto, was initiated by the so-called ‘events of October 1 1965’. On that date, six generals and an officer were abducted and murdered by a group of lower ranking officers. Some top leaders of the PKI, the Indonesian communist party, were also involved, but the rest of the leadership and the party as a whole were left in the dark. General Suharto quickly crushed the movement and started a genocide. The leftist ‘pillar’ in society was destroyed. Perhaps between 500 000 and a million people were slaughtered, and hundreds of thousands were imprisoned (Melvin, 2018; Roosa, 2006). A reign of terror followed. The Indonesian women’s movement has been destroyed in the aftermath of these events. With the help of the infamous slander campaign against Gerwani, the third-largest women’s organization in the world at the time, any form of rights-based feminism had become suspect.¹¹ Elsewhere I called this campaign the first sexual moral panic, which incited Muslim masses to violence, organized by the military.¹²

Feminists had set up some women’s organizations in the 1980s and 1990s, but as it was impossible to establish progressive mass organizations,¹³ their reach was limited. Prominent women’s rights activists, many of whom had been at the forefront of the mass demonstrations that led to the demise of the military dictatorship in 1998 came together to organize the first mass congress of women after Reformasi. December 14–17, 1998, called the Indonesian Women’s Congress (KPI).

The end of the New Order in 1998 was accompanied by much bloodshed and great unrest. The euphoria following the downfall of the military dictator Suharto in 1998 led to many new social and political initiatives. There came a certain openness in society, also about sexual issues. In the early years of this Reformasi period international human rights laws were ratified and a national human rights law was adopted. Freedom of expression and association were guaranteed as well as the freedom of the media. Though lesbian activists were not in the foreground of this democratization process, they established a close connection with the leading feminist organizations of the time, such as the KPI.

When foreign funding to support LGBT issues became available in the early 2000s, various new LGBT organizations were set up and a process of professionalization set in. Funding remained largely restricted to organizations catering to gay men or MTF transgender persons, but women’s same-sex organizations also managed to get some finances. Activists attended international conferences, set up websites, organized trainings, appeared on talk shows, and altogether became more visible and vocal. Their growing presence in the public sphere, coupled with a conservative, illiberal turn in society and the government, ultimately led to a backlash that started in earnest in late 2015 but was already initiated around the debates on the Anti-Pornography Bill which was adopted in 2008 (Wieringa, 2019a and 2019b; Wijaya & Davies, 2019).

After Reformasi there was a proliferation of identities while the earlier b/f culture remained strong.¹⁴ The growing LBT movement charted its own course. Linked with, but different in many ways from the gay and waria cultures, particularly in its greater invisibility and greater exposure to family violence (Boellstorff, 2005; Hegarty, 2017; Oetomo, 1991, 1996; Rodriguez, 2020; Toomistu, 2019). It also had stronger links with the women’s movement, and although the connection was not always easy, it gave them insight into how patriarchy worked and how gender relations were always about power. The Indonesian LBT movement is also different from its Western counterpart, with its focus on identity politics and rights, and its denunciation of b/f communities. In Indonesia the coming out process is more complex and layered than in the West, giving rise to contingent identities, for instance, out as a transperson in one’s own community, but a tomboy in one’s own family. After a period in which LBT organizations gained more visibility and fought for protection from discrimination, conservative forces prevailed. Instead of progressively gaining more rights, a process of criminalization set in. Homosexuality, which was never a criminal offence among adults, was criminalized in the Anti-Pornography Law. In spite of strong protests from women’s and human rights organizations, as well as cultural associations from all over the archipelago, particularly from Bali, this controversial law was accepted in 2008.¹⁵

The first major homophobic attack occurred in November 2000. An HIV/AIDS edutainment event involving drag shows in Kaliurang, Yogyakarta, was raided by around 150 men who called themselves the Anti-Vice Movement (Gerakan Anti-Maksiat) and members of the Gerakan Pemuda Ka’bah (Ka’bah Youth Movement).¹⁶ In subsequent years, similar attacks occurred in other places. Two major attacks occurred in 2010: a conference of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association Asia (ILGA) in Surabaya was assaulted by a coalition of Islamist groups; and a workshop on trans issues organized by the national human rights commission Komnas HAM in Depok was raided by the Islamic Defenders’ Front (FPI) (Liang, 2010).

The LBT movement expanded its international contacts in the period after Reformasi. Some activists took up positions in international bodies.¹⁷ Activists also drew on international human rights documents that Indonesia has signed and ratified, in an effort to hold their government to account to fulfil its obligations to respect and protect human rights.¹⁸ The major document used for such lobbying is the Yogyakarta Principles which address the broad range of human rights standards and their application to issues of sexual orientation and gender identity. These include protection against extrajudicial executions, violence, and torture, access to justice, the right to privacy, non-discrimination, freedom of expression and assembly, employment, health, education, immigration and refugee issues, public participation, and a variety of other rights (O’Flaherty, 2015; Yogyakarta principles, 2023). The Ardhanary Institute, and other LGBT groups actively promoted the acceptance of the Yogyakarta Principles. In their lobbying LGBT activists avoided using terms such as lesbian or gay or LGBT (Chua, 2018). They worked under the umbrella of SRHR (Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights) and combatting gender-based violence, using the language of SOGIE (Sexual Orientation Gender Identity, and Expression), collaborating with broader coalitions such as the mainstream One Vision Alliance (Aliansi Satu Visi). Below I discuss the three largest and most influential LBT organizations that were established in this period, Swara Srikandi, Sektor 15 of the KPI and the Ardhanary Institute.

Swara Srikandi

Swara Srikandi (Voice of Srikandi) can be seen as the successor organization of the lesbian-feminist groups of New Order Indonesia. In 2000 Maureen under the pseudonym of Wina set up the lesbian bulletin Swara Mitra (Voice of Friends). The idea was to publish a bulletin every two months. Only one edition was initially published because of lack of funding. Wina, Bungsu, MilaBlü, and Lily formally established Swara Srikandi on August 4, 2000; on August 30, 2000, the website went up.¹⁹ Ree, Bonny, and Ade also joined. In 2002 two new members joined the board, Alex and Riper. Swara Srikandi’s editorial team announced that they tried to steer lesbians away from a wild lifestyle, the way lesbians are always portrayed in the mass media and that they wanted to portray the positive sides of lesbian life.²⁰ They explained that the name Srikandi was chosen because this wayang heroine has a different sexual orientation but the same capacities as heterosexual persons. Just like some people love pop music and others classical music. Srikandi, they stressed, is both courageous (she is an excellent archer) and friendly (lembut).

Items on the site included discussions about sexual orientation, religion, and the tribulations of love, such as jealousy and how to overcome a broken heart. Another topic was drugs. They realized that many young lesbians took to drugs out of despair and they wanted to help them to give up that addiction. The debates were open, with long discussions. Most of their visitors were not coming out as lesbians as that word was sensitive. Many called themselves belok (the other side), or L. Or they identified as butch and femme, using those words rather than sentul and kantil, which they associated with an earlier generation. On the website, there were many chats on the differences between who is a butch and who is a transgender.²¹ Maureen liked the metaphor of a butterfly—for, she said, ‘a butterfly refers to the transformation from a caterpillar to a beautiful butterfly and that is what we want to achieve with our website.’²²

Much discussed on the website was coming out as a lesbian—to whom, when, and how. Usually this was a long, painful process, also for many members of Swara Srikandi itself. Chair Wina was not yet out to colleagues and family, an issue that contributed to the later rift in the group. In conversations with me, Wina and Mila said they were careful not to confront the negative public opinion about lesbians frontally. They wanted to work internally first, to understand better their own lesbian subculture. The website was used as a guerrilla strategy, to strengthen their sense of community and reach out from there.

But others were more impatient. Ree, Bonny, and Ade felt that they should be true to their mission to familiarize Indonesian society with lesbian life. Two TV shows on lesbians were broadcast. They catapulted lesbian life into the public sphere but at great cost to the individuals portrayed. Eventually, conflicts arose and Swara Srikandi was dissolved.

The first show was a programme on Trans TV on September 19, 2002. Bonnie and Ade appeared prominently, surrounded by cigarette buds and tarot cards but also books and a laptop to illustrate that lesbians are studious persons, who have not turned to lesbianism because of a heart broken by men. Some members of the Swara Srikandi board did not support this show.

The second TV interview was broadcast on March 4, 2003. This TV7 programme documented the lives of members of both KPI and Swara Srikandi. Also, a couple of lesbians from Yogya were shown, kissing and cuddling each other, but their faces were blurred. Wina was angry, for lesbian intimacy was shown on TV while she felt that the public was not yet ready for that.

They received many positive reactions on their website (women crying to see there were lesbians like them) but also terrorizing messages from Islamist extremists. Threats arrived that it was allowed by religion (halal) to cut up lesbians and drink lesbian blood²³ and the hate mongers threatened to rape them with their big penises. This led to a major panic in the group.²⁴ In May 2003, they told me they were being terrorized on their website by a person calling himself Iman Prasetyo.²⁵

The slurs of Iman Prasetyo indicate that the homophobia from Muslim hardliners has been present long before the wave of political homophobia started in late 2015. On March 5, 2003, he screeched ‘that they should throw away those penises. Why do they need a cucumber, banana, eggplant or a candle to become a man? Why do they use the attributes of men which are created by Allah for the community of men? ‘He wrote he would come to their houses, as ‘drinking their blood is halal’, as it is clear they are ‘devils’ (March 6). And, he added the next day, ‘no different from prostitutes working in Kalijodo²⁶ or in luxurious hotels, or as murderers, robbers, rapists, and thieves.’ Other depletives Iman used that month included ‘gamblers, corruptors, tax evaders, rapists, and abortionists.’ On April 3 Iman announced that they would soon organize a raid and kill the women, with knives or guns. He stressed there were many ways to die, AIDS, SARS they could get into a car accident, or be electrocuted. He continued in this fashion, revealing he was associated with the well-known Wahabist pesantren Daarut Tauhid in Bandung. Ultimately, he accused them of wanting marriage equality and the right to adopt children.²⁷

In the meantime, other tensions had arisen as well. The original founders of Swara Srikandi were women committed to fighting for their rights. But other members wanted fun, clubbing, parties, and above all dating. Many of them smoked, and some of the younger ones might wear weird makeup. They were less interested in meetings and discussions. In June 2003, after they had received a small grant, they published their second bulletin, Lembar Swara, with a coloured front page featuring two swans, necks intertwined. Butterflies were all over the pages symbolizing the transformation from the unattractive caterpillar to a glamorous free flying being. This issue contained an explanation of terms, such as the difference between transgender and butch.²⁸

Leadership problems had surfaced. Both Bonnie and Wina complained the other wanted to play the boss of the organization.²⁹ Wina felt uncomfortable that Bonnie pressured them to come out openly, while other members were not yet ready for that, as the society was so homophobic. The organization succumbed to all these tensions and members withdrew. By the end of 2003 Swara Srikandi had only four members left, of the original 50. In 2004 Swara Srikandi was no more (Agustine, 2008).

Swara Srikandi was the first LBT organization that made extensive use of social media. Supported by well-known lesbian feminists from an earlier generation, like Gayatri and Syarifah Sabaroedin, they opened a space for a wide discussion on evolving identities. They made lesbian lives visible to a broad public and paid a high price for that. Ultimately the tensions that evolved created insurmountable problems. Lesbian activists from the KPI, who developed their own organization alongside Swara Srkandi, learnt a lot both from the successes and from the ultimate demise of Swara Srikandi.

KPI: Sektor 15

By the end of the year in which Suharto was toppled, a large group of prominent feminists organized the first feminist conference, December 14–17, 1998.³⁰ The well-known women’s and human rights lawyer Nursyahbani Katjasungkana was elected chairperson of the new mass organization, called KPI (Kongres Perempuan Indonesia, Indonesian Women’s Congress). It was decided that 15 sectors would be formed of particular groups.³¹ Sexual minorities would be the last group, Sektor 15. The well-known criminologist Syarifah Sabaroedin (known as Ifa) became the sector’s coordinator. Ifa set herself the task of spreading the word outside of Jakarta. As the group had no funds its ambitions were curtailed.

In 2000 Agustine became the editor of the organization’s bulletin, Semai (Seedling). In September 2001 she published an issue on the problems lesbian women faced.³² The KPI chair set the tone with a column strongly arguing that the rights of LBT people are human rights which have to be protected under both national and international law. Syarifah contributed an article on compulsory heterosexuality, which in Indonesia is considered kodrati (natural), but which should be seen as a form of violence against women. Agustine herself chronicled the physical and psychic violence of two lesbians.

Agustine invited all her friends from earlier lesbian organizations and from informal networks to join the Sektor 15. On December 22, 2001, a discussion on sex and gender was held in Jakarta, co-organized by KPI and ILF Indonesian Lesbian Forum. The discussions focused on theories related to differences between sex, gender, and sexual orientation. In 2002 KPI organized a two weeks’ workshop on sexuality in Ciloto,³³ attended by both feminist and LBT activists. During a discussion on February 9, 2003, sexual minorities in relation to Islam and patriarchy were the major topics; it was felt that patriarchy hit women harder than gay men, as lesbians face heavier stigma and more family violence. They are often forcibly married off.

Sektor 15 Jakarta tried to be the umbrella under which other groups of lesbian women could operate. In 2004 they had two groups, in Jakarta and in Padang, while in Ujung Pandang and Yogyakarta groups of lesbian women were coming together within the KPI but without the formal structure of a Sektor 15 status. However due to lack of funds, the Jakarta-based national secretariat was unable to travel to cities outside of Jakarta and to coordinate the groups. Trying to avoid the shortcomings she noted in earlier lesbian organizations, Agustine carefully built a community. This was not easy, as the various intersecting factors of class, education, identity and age always threatened to break up the group.

On October 1, 2003, a meeting was organized at the office of the KPI with members of the gay, lesbian, and transgender waria community. It was decided to ask for a discussion with the National Human Rights Commission, Komnas HAM, to explain the problems experienced by gay, lesbian, transgender, and waria persons.³⁴ A declaration was composed which referred to the UN Declaration on Human Rights and the Constitution. Instead of the state guaranteeing the rights contained therein the members of the lesbian, gay, transgender, and waria community complained that they were accused of being sick, abnormal, sinful, unnatural (melawan kodrat), and of spreading HIV/AIDS.

Komnas HAM, represented by Dr Taheri Noor (Vice Chair Commission of Monitoring) reacted by sending a letter to the Head of the National Police, exhorting the National Police Chief to follow up on the complaints that gay, lesbian, and transsexual people submitted on violence committed against them both in the household and in society at large.³⁵ This was the first public statement supporting LGBT rights.

In 2004 KPI held its second congress. The members of Sektor 15 prepared well. Among the 600 participants, this small band of lesbian warriors stood out. Some KPI members were supportive, but there were also negative statements, that these lesbians ‘hurt Islam’. Three Sektor 15 members stood up in the plenary and demanded that sexual orientation be included in the paragraphs on human rights. Their proposal was accepted. They were all delighted with their victory. This was the first time lesbians fought for their rights in a public forum.

After 2005, activities in KPI on LGBT issues decreased. The new leadership did not provide as much support as the Presidium did under Nursyahbani Katjasungkana, who had become an MP. Yet around that time, until 2008, openness around LGBT issues was at its highest point. On August 27, 2005, for instance a discussion was held in LSA, (Lembaga Sosial Agama, Social Institute for Religion), on the beauty of same-sex marriage, arguing that the Quranic verse 21 (Ar-Rum) says that Allah has ‘prepared for you a partner of your own kind’. This could be interpreted as allowing same-sex marriage, the participants concluded.³⁶ Of course, this view was strongly opposed by others. Conservative media vigorously rejected any attempt at legalization of this ‘criminal behaviour’, especially where it concerned ‘professional lesbians’ or ‘promotors of lesbianism’.³⁷ In November 2005 the lesbian group in KPI decided to move out of KPI and set up the Ardhanary Institute. Agustine told me that although the 1998 congress of the KPI accepted the importance of lesbianism, she had experienced many problems. She was a member of the secretariat but her colleagues found it difficult to accept that lesbianism was important. And when regional leaders were known to be lesbians they were prevented from taking up important positions. Other lesbian activists told similar stories. Thus, though the KPI had initiated important discussions on sex, gender, and sexual orientation and had provided a space for organizing and training, in the end, the need was felt to go separate ways.

Ardhanary Institute

The Ardhanary Institute was established on November 14, 2005. Five divisions were set up, organization, research and publications, assistance, advocacy, and information and documentation. The institute established itself formally, with bylaws that stated its aims. These were to eliminate all forms of discrimination against Lesbians, Bisexuals, and Transgenders (LBTs) in Indonesia by empowering LBT persons, building of peer-groups and by advocacy for LBT rights. In line with the vision of their role model, Nursyahbani Katjasungkana, they based themselves on the 1945 Constitution, the Declaration of Human Rights, CEDAW, and the Yogyakarta Principles.³⁸ They also wanted to contribute to broader discussions on sexuality and sexual rights in Indonesian society. Issues they addressed included gender-based violence and the statements of the DSM IV on homosexuality and SRHR.³⁹ They were soon seen as a trustworthy organization and they managed to attract donors to fund their activities.

In November 2006 they held their first seminar on the unconstitutionality of the many discriminatory regional regulations (Perda), followed by four days of training on advocacy.⁴⁰ Training and education was an important part of the development of individual members of the Ardhanary Institute and contributed to the growth and maturity of the organization. As many members had been evicted from their homes at a young age or had left their homes themselves, their formal education was interrupted. This applied especially to the butches and the transmen, who then found it hard to find suitable employment. Agustine herself, who came from a well-established family had lived on the streets, selling bottled tea on trains to survive.

KPI had started providing training on issues related to gender and sexuality, and several Ardhanary Institute activists followed those courses. Slowly they developed an understanding of gender being fluid and contingent, not binary and stable, as the Indonesian kodrat prescribes. They shared this understanding with LBT activists all over Indonesia and especially after 2010 often were invited to become trainers or resource persons at universities or major NGOs.

Ardhanary Institute made conscious efforts to integrate FTM transgender persons into their organization. In the short-lived first lesbian organization (established in the early 1980s) Perlesin sentul incorporated a broad category of female-born persons who identified as more or less masculine.⁴¹ Gradually those who felt that their bodies and their gender were not aligned and who did not identify as sentul but as men did not join the organization, nor any of the other LBT organizations during the New Order, nor did they join Sektor 15. As a result, they had no space to meet each other. Around 2010 the Ardhanary Institute started connecting with these persons, initially primarily through Facebook. This was not easy, as lesbian chat groups often rejected the members who came out as ‘tg’ (transgender)—the popular abbreviation for the FTM persons at the time. The relatively new discursive category ‘trans’ fitted many of them and they formed a special group within the Ardhanary Institute.

Due to their emphasis on training and education, the team of the Ardhanary Institute successfully completed several research projects. Initially, these were set up in the framework of the Kartini Asia research on heteronormativity (2005–2009) and the research on female masculinities with the Kartini/Transsign team (2012–2014) (Wieringa, 2011). After building up their capacity for research methodology and data analysis they themselves implemented research projects on violence against LBT persons, conversion therapy, and the five-gender system of the Bugis (Agustine & Yolandasari, 2021).⁴²They received assistance from researchers at the University of Indonesia. Several books were published by the team, which were used for training purposes and to make issues of gender and sexual diversity better known to university students.⁴³

Ardhanary activists built extensive national and international contacts. Internationally they linked up with the APWLD (Asia–Pacific Women Law and Development) network, and in 2011 they became a full member. In that year also a representative of the Ardhanary Institute became a board member of ILGA-Asia, after several members had already attended congresses of the network such as in Chiang Mai in 2008. By 2016, when the wave of political homophobia spread, the organization had built a broad network with several major women's organizations and with LGBT organizations, health care providers, and safe houses. The Ardhanary Institute ultimately set up its own LBT crisis centre, at a secret location. They collaborate with lawyers from women’s and other legal aid bureaus to assist the victims of domestic violence. They also operate a hotline and provide psychological help. This included violence within LBT households. They had also established strong links with various funding agencies and with international NGOs working in the SRHR sector. They used a wide variety of products, such as leaflets and a comic book on issues lesbians faced—health, discrimination in society and the workplace as well as bullying at school. They have always been very active on social media that became available in those years; besides their website, they have Facebook groups.

The SOGIEB (Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, Expression and Bodies) model which originated in UN circles was found to be very useful in training with non-LBT persons. By 2010 the concept of LGBT had become common to denote people with a non-heteronormative gender or sexual identity. Societal, religious, and political homophobia centred around that notion. Speaking about SOGIEB allowed activists to avoid this inflammatory concept (Wijaya, 2020). Together with the Yogyakarta Principles they became the core of training modules for the media (in collaboration with the collective of Jurnal Perempuan) and law enforcers (Agustine et al., 2015a).

Due to the corona crisis and the homophobic backlash staff members and volunteers from the Ardhanary Institute presently mostly work from home. Through prudent financial management, they bought a small office in a backstreet of a popular neighbourhood (the street is not accessible by cars, so the pick-up trucks generally used in attacks by vigilante groups cannot enter). Their public activities have almost stopped due to the vicious backlash against LGBT communities that started in late 2015 (Pausacker, 2021; Wieringa, 2019a, 2019b).

Contingent and Fluid Identities

In the period discussed in this chapter, the first 15 years after Reformasi, LBT persons reflected on their own experiences in relation to a developing discourse on gender and sexuality; they realized that gender relations are fluid and their desires and identities contingent.⁴⁴ Fluidity means that neither gender nor sexual attraction is binary, neatly divided between the axes of female-male, and heterosexual-homosexual. With contingent identities, I refer to the different ways in which LBT persons presented themselves in various contexts—their families, their community of LBT friends, or in public places. In the 1980s the categories kantil (femme) and sentul (butch) were the most common identities available, and most female-bodied persons with non-heterosexual desires related to this terminology. From the mid-1990s however, discussions on identities widened. In a majoritarian Muslim country like Indonesia in which biological sex and gender identity are strictly divided into binary and hierarchical oppositions,⁴⁵ divinely sanctioned, this insistence on the instability of such categories is considered almost blasphemous in conservative circles.⁴⁶

Though the gender binaries were questioned after Reformasi, this didn’t mean they disappeared. Till now lesbian relationships modelled after butch-femme patterns exist. In the early years after Reformasi blurring of binary characteristics led to much confusion. In her study of a butch-femme community in Padang, Blackwood demonstrated that her narrators displayed varying levels of butchness depending on whether they were at home or among other members of their community (Blackwood, 2010). Our narrators too played with different layers of heteronormativity. If their passionate aesthetics in the 1980s publicly were aligned more or less along established heteronormative patterns, their relationships might blend in and they would not attract too much undue attention from their neighbours.⁴⁷ This resulted in the possibility that these individuals could be ‘proud and out, but not as lesbians’ (Wieringa, 2007: 75). In the early 2000s this became increasingly difficult as the category of LGBT became more known publicly and as LBT persons themselves became more visible.

At the same time in an intense process of self-reflection, LBT identities proliferated. By the end of the first decade of Reformasi the researchers of the LBT group Dipayoni in Surabaya captured the diversity of identities young urban women in same-sex relationships assumed.⁴⁸ Of the 22 male-identified respondents 3 identified as butchi, 11 as male, 2 as lesbian male, 2 as transboy, and 1 each as in-between, trans/TG, confused/butch, tomboy/ FTM (Wieringa, 2011: 321, Table 11). Their partners identified as lesbian (3) heterosexual (9) or same-sex (10). In their relationships traditional gender patterns were dominant: 12 classified their relationship as hubby-wifi, 2 as papa-mama and 8 as suami-isteri (husband-wife) (Wieringa, 2011: 329, Table 12). Terms that were discussed but rejected by these respondents for public use were belok (twisted) and wandu, the traditional Javanese term used for both male-and female-bodied transgender people. Belok was used internally though, as a marker of not conforming to heteronormative expectations. The terms sentul-kantil were considered old-fashioned. They also rejected the Bugis terminology of calalai-calabai, as too ethnically specific. Transboy or LGBT on the other hand were seen as too Western by some. Another term that male-identified LBT narrators were often called is banci.

The broader inclusion of transpersons in the LBT movement during Reformasi was not easy and not even, but they became a large and identifiable contingent within the Ardhanary Institute. The change in terminology adopted by the organizations helped—Sektor 15 of the KPI and the Ardhanary Institute did not refer to themselves as exclusively lesbian, as earlier organizations did, but as fighting for the rights of sexual minorities and LBT persons respectively. So, the movement had become more inclusive and the choice for transpersons had become broader. They no longer had to identify either as sentul or as men—but could express their identities in a wider range of terms, transboy, transpuan, tg, butchi, etc.

In February 2010, the LBT community in Indonesia was confronted with a case of alleged forgery of identity. Alterina Hofan married Jane Deviyanti in Las Vegas on September 9, 2008. He was reported by his mother-in-law to the police, charged with sexual identity fraud, and imprisoned.⁴⁹ In the press Alter was sometimes referred to as a tomboy or as a lesbian. In the end, a chromosome test proved that Hofan was an intersex person with Klinefelter syndrome and could be classified as male. He was released. This case sparked great excitement in the LBT community, particularly among the FTM trans people. Many hoped they might be intersex, so they could be easily classified as male and marry their lovers. The Dipayoni researchers reported that ten out of a group of 27 FTM respondents believed to have male hormones. In an FGD with ten FTM trans people, three felt they had male hormones and one had it tested. As Rio happily explained: ‘I checked it out in a hospital in Semarang. The results revealed that there are male hormones in my body. Therefore, I did a hormonal treatment. The medical evidence shows that I’m really a man. I’m not a transgender’ (Wieringa, 2011: 326).

Among the FTM transpersons linked to the Ardhanary Institute a similar excitement erupted. A few had themselves tested, but nobody was classified as intersex. The FTM transgenders didn’t want to be categorized as intersex, as the stigma of intersex and transgender people are similarly high, but to use the medical process to sustain their claims they were actually biologically (perhaps partially) men (Ediati, 2014).

Those identifying as trans tried to erase the most obvious female markers from their bodies, their protruding breasts. The ones lucky enough to have small breasts just bandaged them. Those with large breasts felt uncomfortable. As Danny confided: ‘I do not like my breasts, men don’t have breasts. I feel very embarrassed to my wife during lovemaking. I underwent acupunctural treatment. It was expensive, but it was quite successful. My breasts are smaller and flatter, I can bandage them’ (Wieringa, 2011: 327). Their partners were not always helpful. As Joe complained: “The pemmeh (femmes) like butchies who have a flat chest. A butchie with big breasts will be ridiculed by them.’ To have a manly voice was much appreciated among the male-identified narrators. Surya, the suami of Nuri, considers himself to be a man. But he didn’t want an operation, as it wouldn’t make any difference to their lovemaking, he stressed. Nuri said proudly that Surya often sings dangdut songs. But that though her man is so cakap (handsome) he really has such a womanly voice.⁵⁰

Conclusion

In this chapter, I analysed how lesbian women shed off their invisibility in New Order Indonesia, and demanded a place in public life after the fall of the dictator General Suharto in 1998. The spread of the internet became an important tool, and spurned by the emerging women’s rights movement, the language of rights was adopted. In this period LBT activism grew and managed to establish strong networks with women’s and human rights organizations. From small inward-looking groups during the New Order, LBT groups established themselves as actors in the wider field of civil society activism. The more individual activists came out and LGBT organizations became public, advocating for their rights, the stronger homophobia grew, in the form of verbal abuse by conservative figures and raids by thugs linked to hardliner Muslim groups; later spearheaded by political figures, as discussed elsewhere (Wieringa, 2019a and b; Wijaya, 2020). In this phase a space opened to reflect on one’s identity. Feminists criticized the gender binary, arguing that gender is fluid, and that gender relations are about power (Butler, 1993). The evolving lesbian movement charted a careful course between the women’s movement which saw them as ‘stepsisters’, and the gay movement which treated them like the second sex.⁵¹

Foreign funding became available, initially mainly directed at gay men and waria but under the banner of sexual health some LBT organizations could redirect their training activities to be included in these programmes. From the early 2010s, the UN language on SOGIE began to be adopted by LGBT organizations as more neutral than the stigmatized category LGBT and gay or lesbi (Gayatri, 2015; Wijaya, 2020).

Exposure to the growing body of international sexuality studies through training and international contacts led to increasing reflections on identity, culture, and embodiment. A plethora of self-definitions developed, particularly among male-identified persons, ranging from the accepted categories of male and sentul to tomboy, transboy, transgender, priawan, and butchi. While women identifying as lesbians (no label, andro) started developing non-binary perspectives on sexuality, FTM individuals followed a binary-gendered, yet non-heterosexual model. This led to internal debates in LBT circles, but not to a separation, as in the West. Female masculinity was understood as a pervasive but locally distinct phenomenon firmly located in local patriarchies, deeply challenging Indonesia’s construction of women’s nature (kodrat), since 1965 reinforced by state ideology and religious conservative groups.⁵² The non-normative female-bodied persons with a man’s soul do not just hold up a mirror that reflects normative masculinity, but diffracts that normalcy, highlighting certain aspects (dress, behaviour), and ignoring other ones. The entanglement of the biological (genetic), psychological and socio-cultural aspects in processes of identity formation were the topics of fierce discussions. As Barad formulates: ‘Neither discursive practices nor material phenomena are ontologically or epistemologically prior… Neither has privileged status in determining the other’ (Barad, 2006: 26). Identities are not fixed, but contingent, as becomes clear in an analysis of tomboi’s subject positions (Blackwood, 2010). For FTM individuals experience their maleness not only in their souls, to which they often refer, but also as deeply rooted in their bodies.

The early and consistent alliance between the LBT and the women’s movement is related to the realization that both groups are confronted with similar stigmas, namely that women are seen as the source of maksiat (immorality). Therefore, lesbians have always been confronted with more stigma than gay men. If a woman is yet to be married at a certain age, society labels her a spinster, bringing social shame to the family. Therefore, lesbian women have always been in danger of being married off forcibly. That pressure is less on gay men, as society is more tolerant of them and waria, because men have a place in public life. All through this period homosexuality was labelled as a sin, a crime, or an illness, or all three combined, by diverse conservative groups.

So, the LBT movement differs from gay groups—they are more invisible, and face greater family pressure. They are less able to access funding. But they are politically more astute as they have been more exposed to feminist debates on patriarchy. They also differ from Western lesbian movements in this period, as trans persons and b/f relations have been accepted under the LBT umbrella, although that has not always been easy. Also issues like coming out and marriage equality have had different connotations in Indonesia than in the West.