[wanita-muslimah] Trans and Muslim: Portraying the Lives of Warias in Indonesia

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/mmw/2012/09/trans-and-muslim-portraying-the-lives-of-warias-in-indonesia/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SJTzMHDaOlg

Trans and Muslim: Portraying the Lives of Warias in Indonesia

September 20, 2012 By eren Leave a Comment

I recently came across a short movie on the life of transsexual
Muslims in Indonesia. In the last few years, MMW has covered a few
different stories in terms of LGBT activism in Indonesia: issues
concerning transgender and transsexual communities, the challenges
faced by lesbians and the attempts to bring LGTBQ issues to the public
sphere.
Yet there are things to watch, along with our reading!

The Warias: Indonesia's Transsexual Muslims is a short documentary
that presents the lives of Indonesian transsexuals, or warias, as they
are called. In this film Hannah Brooks visits an Islamic school for
transsexuals. The star of the film is Maryani, a 50-year-old
transsexual who owns a beauty salon and runs the Senin-Kamis School
for waria from the back of the beauty salon. In addition to her
involvement with the trans community and her job, Maryani raises her
adopted daughter on her own.

Maryani's story is one of challenges. After recognizing her identity
as a transsexual at age 14, Maryani was involved in a variety of
things including prostitution. Yet, she converted to Islam in her 30s.
Despite the paradoxes that life as a transsexual Muslim convert in
Indonesia may entail (i.e. community's rejection and some Islamic
scholars' condemnation), Maryani was committed to bringing Islamic
knowledge to the trans community. Maryani's point in endorsing Islamic
teachings is to enable trans people to experience spirituality and to
show them that in spite of society's opinions, Allah created
transsexuals, Allah loves them, and they have the responsibility to
worship Him.

The documentary features the complex relationship that comes along
with failing to fit the gender and sexual moulds generally endorsed by
mainstream Muslims. Things like marriage, and the unusual
relationships that the warias tend to have with men who are not ready
to give up the hetero-normative standard, show the challenges that
come along with practicing Islam but not being accepted by a large
part of the community.

The film does a great job in drawing the line between the
interviewees' sacred connection to God and the earthly rejection they
face in a variety of ways. First, it shows the conflict between
pre-Islamic gender standards and those endorsed by the introduction of
Islam to Indonesia in the 13th century. Then, it draws on the
lifestyles in which the warias decide to engage with Islam, which
sometimes could seem paradoxical or incompatible. Finally, and most
importantly I believe, it shows that Islam, for the warias, transcends
the community that rejects them and is concentrated on their
relationship with the divine. Yet, as the film shows, sometimes the
relationship with Allah has to be developed, and for that the warias
need a safe place.

This documentary, although set in Indonesia, seems to bring closer to
home the issues of gender and sexuality in Islam and how they are
constantly challenged and reinterpreted. This film allow us, Muslims
around the world, to observe how faith develops in those places that
are often condemned and how Islamic teachings inspire change for
marginalized groups.

This film is definitely worth watching. For one, it invites the viewer
to look at things from different angles. It shows us that Islam and
Islamic practices are not simply black and white. In addition,
although we are not there yet in the quest to accept and include LGTBQ
communities, the warias in Indonesia, and particularly Maryani,
present a strong case on how Islamic teachings provide room for LGTBQ
communities and compel mainstream communities to think outside the
box.


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