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queeringperspectives
Jul 22, 20235 min read

#34 - Waria in indonesia: A path of (historical) importance and struggle

Updated: Aug 24, 2023

This week we interviewed Febby Damayanti, a waria activist and advocate for the rights and protection of the waria community in Surabaya, Indonesia. But who are the waria?

The term 'waria' is a combination of the Indonesian terms 'wanita' (woman) and 'pria' (man). Waria identity is a complex and diverse reality in Indonesia, and their status, acceptance, and realities vary from region to region.

In this article, we explore the lives, struggles, and contributions of the waria people, shedding light on their experiences and the broader social context in which they navigate.

The waria identity is an interesting demonstration of how gender understandings can differ. In contrast to the West, Indonesian cultures have a long tradition of not viewing feminine and masculine as opposites. Many Indonesian languages do not even use gender-specific pronouns. Thus, these languages have evolved in a context where gender is not inherent in a person's body, but in the way that a person behaves.

The term waria, for example, is applied to any person assigned male at birth who expresses a femme gender identity, so it includes everyone from cross-dressers who only do it for performance, to femme gay men and non-binary people, to trans women. Some of them identify as men, some as women, and some as neither, just waria. In this sense, waria is a spectrum of femme gender identities. For masc identities, the term is tomboi.

More recently, however, the term has evolved to refer almost exclusively to trans women, although there are different connotations and social expectations that should prevent us from using the terms interchangeably, and we should refer to them as waria, as they call themselves, to respect the nuances of the cultural context.

However, the term "waria" is a modern development that did not appear until the 19th century. This means that the gender binary enforced by colonization and Islamization had already taken root, and the term itself, as a combination of man and woman rather than a different category altogether, is already a marker of this shift.

In this sense, the waria are in a different line from the bissu we explored last week. In precolonial, pre-Islamic Indonesian cultures, queerness signals a disposition to a particular social role, like the bissu in Sulawesi or the warok in East Java, and is only secondarily a gender or sexual identity. They require training and initiation, and this queerness is usually not found outside of these roles.

In contrast, the concept of the waria emerges after Indonesia's territories were unified as a Dutch colony and a sense of national uniformity began to emerge. This means that several queer traditions were unified as well, and gender nonconformity was detached from its ancestral roles. The shift from social role to personal identity opens up individual freedom at the cost of social protection.

But the fact the word emerged recently doesn’t mean that waria people just simply appeared. The presence of waria in entertainment has a long history in Indonesia. Outside of ritualized social roles, waria have traditionally performed in theater and dance, such as the ludruk theater in the Surabaya region of East Java, or the lengger dance of Banyumasan in Central Java.

Nevertheless, the term waria emerges as an umbrella term for trans femme identities at a time when Indonesian nationhood is being formed with a uniform belief in binary gender expectations. In this context, the waria identity developed as an already marginalized position.

As the word began to circulate and popularize as a derogatory term during the conservative New Order government in the 1970s, waria were gradually pushed out of the public eye and away from their traditional roles as entertainers. Access to education and employment is highly dependent on economic and family circumstances. But in a conservative and queerphobic society, many are kicked out of their homes, and as a result, most waria today usually work in beauty parlors during the day and do sex work on the streets at night.

Sex work itself is deeply frowned upon by the religious and moral values of society at large. This, combined with the attack on waria identity by conservative governments and Islamist movements, puts waria sex workers in a very precarious position. They are routinely raided by police and abused by clients, with no protection to do their work safely. Many waria are not even issued proper documentation by the government, which paradoxically puts them at risk of being arrested by the police for not carrying identification.

Among the risks that waria sex workers face is exposure to HIV. According to recent surveys, over 25% of waria are HIV positive. The problem is compounded by the lack of identification among the waria community, which limits their access to health care. Despite all this, they usually have no choice but to continue working, making the exclusion of waria from public services a bigger problem for society as a whole.

As usual, instead of addressing the situation more organically and providing waria with the support they need to earn a safe living and reduce the spread of infection, public policies are limited to increasing police repression and prohibiting waria from working, which only contributes to further marginalizing them and forcing them to take even greater risks to earn some money.

Organizations like Perwakos, where our guest Febby works, are working to improve the lives of waria and increase social acceptance. Work like this is crucial to amplifying the voices and experiences of the waria community. More and more, waria are integrating to office jobs and public offices. And despite all their hardships, waria have found community and moments of queer joy in the spaces they've created for themselves.

Waria today carry on the legacy of a rich cultural heritage that has embraced gender diversity in spiritual and artistic roles. However, as in many places around the world, queer and trans* people in Indonesia are increasingly being targeted by conservative sectors to garner populist support.

But in the case of Indonesia, it is even more frustrating because it is only a matter of looking back and remembering the value that gender diversity has had in shaping the country's history, reflected in the exuberance and diversity of cultural practices that Indonesia is so proud of. Those were shaped by the queer ancestors of the waria, so in witnessing their treatment today, let us remember how important the work of protecting our queer history is for the future of all.

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