A kebaya tale

When I was an undergraduate in a local public university not too long ago, I had my first personal encounter with a transwoman. She was my senior in the residential college that I was staying at, and I have to admit, from the first time I saw her, I could not stop staring.

Due to the gender stated in her IC, she had to stay in the hostel block meant for the boys. She would wear unisex-looking clothes to classes – long pants and blouses that can pass for shirts. Her routine in the evenings involve running on campus grounds – and she did so in hot pants and sports bra; this made her quite well-known among the campus fraternity. I am not sure how she really feels about being the centre of attention, but she always seemed to be elegantly put together, even while running.

What made the most spectacle though, were on Fridays: where she would don kain pelikat and a simple t-shirt, tie her long hair up, put on a songkok and go for Friday prayers at the mosque.

I made her acquaintance and started working with her for our residential college’s student projects. I can’t remember the exact details of our conversations back then, but what I can remember were the conversations were no different than those I would have with my cis-gender friends. We all share the same worries – how well would we do in exams, whether we are doing good and making our parents proud, whether our crushes notice us, whether we will be employed and get the careers we want after graduation.

Typical undergraduate, early-20-year-olds’ worry.

While I did not notice any blatant discrimination towards her, and she never mentioned it, I sensed that the campus fraternity were accepting of her, and yet also find her “interesting.” People would talk about her, and sometimes, there were snide comments about how she was balancing being a male by birth records yet prefer to be her female self.  The whole campus knows her by her female name. Her demeanour and personality, however, exudes the confidence that she was being treated fairly, with a professional law degree underway back then, despite the apparent gender identity disorder (GID) she has.

During formal events for our student projects, which were many, she would wear the kebaya, complete with batik sarong and her long hair tied up in an elegant bun, reminiscing of nyonya women and the elegant ladies you see in P Ramlee movies. She has an assortment of kebaya and sarong. I have to say, as an overweight, round-shaped young woman back then, I looked up to my senior; and I remember telling myself that one day, I want to wear the kebaya too.

And I want to wear the kebaya and sarong as elegantly as my transwoman senior did.

I lost contact with her after graduation, where I left Malaysia for 4 years to further my studies. I don’t know what became of her now, whether she is still known as who she is, or did she succumb to the pressure of society to be what her birth records demand her to be? Deep in my heart, I believe that she would be the former: a confident professional, intelligent, and elegant person, the one I knew and remember from my undergraduate days. I imagine her taking command of any room she walked into wearing her kebaya and sarong.

There are many like her. Some are not fortunate enough to be within the safe environs of acceptance and love. Worse, discrimination happens often, forcing such individuals to succumb to sex work to support their lives simply because they cannot work as per their qualifications due to their personalities not matching their records. Some have experienced emotional bullying; others, violence.

Simply for being who they are.

As much as I believe in the kind hearts of Malaysians, I do not discount the incidences where individuals are discriminated against for their religion, race, sexuality, and even gender or gender of one’s own choosing.

From personal experience, I have always looked up to the confidence exuded by transwomen and transmen. I know that such confidence comes from a hard life of choosing to follow their hearts. I applaud the wise and just unanimous decision by the esteemed Court of Appeal Judges, Datuk Mohd Hishamuddin Yunus, Aziah Ali, and Lim Yee Lan in the recent case involving transwomen.

But, lest we forget, even with the presence of laws and policing, it is ultimately us, the people, who make the social environment we live in. Perhaps it is time for each of us to look into our own lives and hearts on how we treat those who are different than us. Perhaps we can learn a lesson a two from such differences.

Perhaps we all should try and don a kebaya and sarong, and learn that it is not the clothes we wear. But rather how we wear them, that makes all the difference. – January 28, 2015.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.