Dear Dina Georgis,
First and foremost, I want to thank you for detailing queerness in Arab culture in your
piece at such great depth, especially through your analysis on queer Arab subjectivities
represented in Bareed . Born and raised in Malaysia, your piece made me find parallels between
queer Arab subjectivities and that of in Malaysia. Your piece if anything, made me learn so much
about pride epistemology, homonationalism and Arab ‘reinvented’ sexualities.
When you talked about pride epistemology, you made what I thought was impossible, to
be possible – that shame can be worked through, not against, just like what the authors in Bareed
did. When I was in a relationship with a woman years ago, shame was something I clearly
wanted to work against as it constantly reminded me of the fear of being ostracized by my
family. Same-sex relationships are a taboo in Malaysia, especially because it is a majority
Muslim country. I didn’t want to jeopardize the relationship I have with my family over someone
who is not my kin, so I chose tradition and family instead of the modern queer life. I didn’t think
then, that conquering shame could lead to a learning process of which i could potentially use it as
a source of empowerment to find a sense of belonging in the community.
This is especially so when local activism in Malaysia more often than not, is only limited
to the ideas of queers being associated with the pride epistemology – to be liberated is to work
against shame and in defiance of group ties (religious, societal, cultural). It became expected for
me to identify with the intelligible markers that are based on that of the West if I wanted to be a
part of whom the activism was for. For example, the annual gathering for transgender people
called Seksualiti Merdeka in Malaysia promotes coming out, and ultimately defying society,
culture and religion in the name of an alternate and strong community for sexual minorities.
This poses a serious threat for other transgender people that have been in Malaya for
decades like sida-sida, pawang, or mak andam who might not conceptualize their identities in
accordance with the pride epistemology. Nisha Ayub, the leader of Justice For Sisters, arguably
the leader of the transgender movement in Malaysia, is a graduate of Queen Mary University of
London, and exclusively recognizes identities deployed from the West. This, in effect,
perpetuates the idea that pride epistemology is the sole method to gain belonging among
transgender people in Malaysia. This becomes a source of struggle in formulation of belonging
for people who prefer their identities to be kept private, or achieve a stronger sense of belonging
when not in defiance to any ties. Had local activism been inclusive and wary of the Western
pride epistemology, queer becoming in Malaysia would have been informed by these strategies
from their Arab counterparts, especially conquering shame to strengthen the sense of belonging
with family and group ties (religious, societal, cultural) that Malaysians find hard to sacrifice –
something I personally found impossible to work through.
However, when you emphasized that Palestinian’s queer rights are jeopardized by Israel’s
branding of gay ‘safe haven’, I think it is only fair not to just mention homonationalism as the
critique for lesbian and gay liberal rights discourses but to map out the relations between
pinkwashing and homonationalism too. This is especially important as pinkwashing is a practise
made possible by homonationalism itself (Puar, 33). Pinkwashing operates mainly by being
associated with to the promotion of LGBTQ at the front of Israeli democracy, to deflect the
attention from the occupation of Palestine (Puar, 32). As an example, on the same day that Tel
Aviv was honored ‘world’s best gay city’, unification of West Bank Palestinians with their
spouses in Israel was prohibited (Puar, 36).
The occupation also limits movements by queer activists in Ramallah as they cannot
travel pass Israel to meet other fellow queer activists. This if anything, only prohibits possible
queer movements that could have been achieved between them (Puar, 34). It becomes clear that
pinkwashing is situated in a wider homonationalizing geopolitical context as a result of both
history and global international relations. This only reminds us that we need to be more careful
in regulating identities in this increasingly homonationalist world – as Jasbir Puar puts it, a world
that evaluates nationhood on the basis of the treatment of its homosexuals (Puar, 38).
When you refuted Massad on Arab ‘reinvented’ sexualities, you helped me think beyond
what sexual identities Malaysians deployed other than “lesbian”, “gay”, “bisexual”,
“transgender”, or the traditional identities like sida-sida, pawang or mak andam, tomboy, or
pengkid , to name a few. However, Justice For Sisters, makes it clear that they do not want to be
identified as pondan, but as a transgender person – “we are outraged and appalled by the use of
language such as ‘wanita jadian’ and ‘pondan’”, they fiercely proclaim in a recent article on their
website. To be sure, it is true that pondan is often used derogatively. However, they make no
attempt to reclaim the term and associate its usage in Malay with backwardness, while phrases in
English are associated with modernity and progressiveness. Constant interconnectivity of
cultures and places that affect the fluidity of these sexualities, if anything, permits the creation of
pondan at the first place. If we completely deny this identity, stripping the recognition will only
continue to assimilate self-identified pondan among queer communities.
It is not wrong for queer in Malaysia to identify with Western constitutive identities as
queer becoming was mapped from Western imperialism and globalization too, when the British
occupied Malaya decades ago. It is not only right either to deploy identities based off the
traditional local identities like sida-sida, pawang, mak andam , tomboy or pengkid . There can be
no static imagery of traditional or Western sexualities because they are always dynamic. This
helped frame my understanding on sexualities in Malaysia deeper and I thank you for that.