IV. Asia and the Pacific

Asia’s four billion people defeat any generalization. A Philippine activist says, “the sheer diversity of cultural contexts and political systems ... makes it a real challenge to develop any common strategy.” The diversity within many countries mirrors this: even relatively small Nepal has dozens of ethnic identities. Making any sense of the complexity means leaving much of the richness out.

Patterns of abuse

One way of organizing the differences from an LGBT perspective is to look at the sodomy laws. In most of South Asia—Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, stretching over to Malaysia and Singapore and some Pacific islands—versions of the same British colonial provision were handed down from code to code. Embodied in the Indian penal code as Section 377, it punishes “carnal intercourse against the order of nature.” A leading Nepalese activist says his “priority would be decriminalization of consensual same-sex sexual activity in South Asia.” Although his country escaped the British-era sodomy provision, its repressive effects on both public awareness and policing still seep across the border. 

In India itself, Section 377 gives the police enormous powers to harass and blackmail. But so do other provisions, particularly the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, which regulates sex work. It is a basis for regular harassment of hijras (working-class transgender individuals) and other gender-nonconforming communities--as well as many women, whether in commercial sex work or not.

More broadly, hijras (an identity widely shared across South Asia) as well as similar local identities such as metis in Nepal are virtually “excluded from social and political life”—prevented by law or practice from receiving ID cards, renting houses, working, or even voting in some places—because they violate gendered expectations of how people should look or behave.

Activists in South Asia point to “Police powers that are unregulated, and police corruption,” as primary concerns, including “violence at sex sites from police and hooligans, indiscriminate use of laws against ‘public nuisance’ ... and denial of public space for sexual minorities.” Police regularly target HIV/AIDS outreach workers for harassment.

Meanwhile, lesbian and bisexual women face “forced marriage, employment discrimination ... violence within the home and in public spaces.” Anecdotal reports of patterns of suicide among lesbian and bisexual women, particularly in India, point to commonalities with single women, widows, and other people marginalized by gender norms. They also suggest the absence of information about sexuality and gender at many levels of society, the lack of sexuality education, and—as one activist puts it—the “complete lack of recognition and any kind of state assistance for queer youth.”

Harassment in schools and silence in curricula are regional concerns. In Singapore, one group says “Gay teachers are systematically removed from classrooms, sex education packages ... are either silent about homosexuality or negative about it, school administrators ... often invite anti-gay Christian groups to give ‘sex education’ talks.” Mental health professions in the region often cling to the pathologization of gender nonconformity or same-sex relations. They have only begun reforming policy and practice on sexual orientation and gender identity.[10]

In much of East Asia (and part of the Pacific), homosexual conduct is not criminalized. An organizer in the Philippines, looking at regional activist goals, cites “passing an anti-discrimination law where there is no anti-sodomy law.” However, an anti-discrimination bill has stalled in the Philippine legislature for years, facing severe opposition from the Catholic Church. Sexual orientation (with six other categories) was dropped from an anti-discrimination law in South Korea in 2007, at the urging of Protestant churches and business leaders.

China has seen police crackdowns on gay and lesbian bars, baths, and cultural events. Authorities regularly harass or detain AIDS activists. They have closed LGBT websites--including ones focused on AIDS prevention—as “pornographic.”

Sri Lankan activists also note “increased restrictions by the government on NGOs, internet access, telephones.” In Singapore, an activist says, “Virtually no positive representations of LGBT people are allowed on TV. Newspapers carry as little gay-related news as possible ... leading to climate of silence and a perpetuation of ignorance.”

As in other regions, legal registration is difficult for many groups to obtain, either due to morals restrictions or the effect of sodomy laws. A Singapore group says, “In the absence of legality, we are effectively breaking the law whenever we organize anything.”

Challenges and chances

A Pakistan support group speaks for many in the region in saying: “fundamentalism is the most disturbing factor for our society, especially for LGBT.” Activists in Sri Lanka warn of “Buddhist religious fundamentalism” and “prevailing pseudo-nationalistic attitudes.” Indian activists fear renewed attention from the Hindu right.  In Singapore Christian fundamentalism is “inspired (and possibly funded) by US evangelical churches. Related to this is the tendency of many civil servants and school administrators to bias in favour of ‘morality’ (as Christian-defined) and the conservative concept of ‘family.’”

In many parts of Asia, different forms of fundamentalism are able to set aside differences and cooperate locally where sexual orientation and gender identity are at stake. In Hong Kong, a group for lesbian and bisexual women sees coordinated attacks “from traditional Chinese ‘family values’ and the Christian Right movement.”

As in other regions, nationalism and religious intolerance come together in a conception of cultural authenticity that excludes sexual or gender nonconformity. As one Indian lesbian activist said, “At this point the conservatives simply act as though all sexuality comes from the West.”

Asian exceptionalism—the ideology that the continent had different political needs and values, that individual rights protections were at odds with collectivist traditions and an unwanted brake on economic advances—retreated after the economic crises of the late 1990s. Yet it still materializes as an excuse for state neglect or inaction, particularly in sensitive areas such as sexuality. A South Korean activist laments, “The present government puts economic development and efficiency in front of democracy and human rights.”

More concretely, the absence of an Asian regional human rights structure leaves activists without a near-at-hand institutional focus for advocacy, or for networking with mainstream human rights groups. However, regional LGBT networks, as well as networks of HIV/AIDS organizations, have an increasingly strong presence.

In country after country, the response to HIV/AIDS opened doors for LGBT activism. In some cases it did so simply by making conversations about sexuality possible. A Pakistan groups says: “Until the last decade we could not even talk about sex issues and HIV/AIDS prevention issues among MSM, it was forbidden and illegal. But now we can discuss the health issues ... It means the circumstances are being changed slowly but continuously.”

The most important doors now ajar, though, are arguably those to funders. After taking the lead in the lead in outreach and prevention efforts, many LGBT groups found grants available for the first time. At the same time, this sparked internecine competitions over identity—over who should be supported for outreach to what communities under what names. The funding streams also confined many groups to service provision and sapped their energy for advocacy. 

More comprehensively, a Tamil-Nadu-based MSM group criticizes “HIV-AIDS focused funding streams that strip MSM of everything but their genitals ... The ‘medicalized’ version of work happening on the ground is actually detrimental to our community ... MSM are much more than just sexual beings.”

What are movements doing?

Asian social movements—sexuality and gender-related movements among them—are rich in strategic discussions and disagreements. It is impossible to capture more than a small part of the manifold perspectives posited and directions proposed.

At least one success story has inspired LGBT activists throughout the region. Nepal’s leading LGBT group negotiated the thickets of HIV/AIDS funding, found its own path from service provision to political advocacy, and changed the country. “We started with health intervention,” they recount, which was “a way to reach out to the larger society in a non-threatening manner.” With the information collected through outreach they began documenting and publicizing human rights abuses, “letting the world know what kinds of violations sexual and gender minorities faced.” Political interventions grew out of that, as they “took to the streets, began to lobby political parties, and even participated in elections,” as well as “took the government to court.” They persuaded the country’s Supreme Court to mandate protections in law for sexual orientation and gender identity—and the group’s founder now sits in the Constituent Assembly. 

The step from service provision to advocacy is still difficult for groups to manage, given funding constraints. Even after many victories, Nepalese activists admit there is much to be done. Judicial acknowledgement and political influence still do not mean improvements for many of their constituencies. The relationship between legal change and social change is a crucial question for many activists in the region.

“Legal change is only one of the strategies towards social change,” a rural Indian group comments. An Indian activist heavily involved in campaigning against Section 377 adds, “In India, law and policy often follow social change, and in and of themselves, can do little to change the everyday ... Law and policy should never be our priorities even as we recognize the need for them to keep pace with changes we are making on the ground.”

Even recognizing the importance of removing Section 377, Indian activists long debated the relative value of litigation as opposed to broad social mobilization against the provision. Similar divisions occur—or are likely to—in other countries, including those where anti-discrimination protections are a key goal. In India, a compromise has been achieved. As lawyers move a case on Section 377 toward a conclusion in Delhi’s High Court,[11] a diverse “coalition of groups, only some of which are LGBTI” are using the case to raise community and national awareness on a range of related issues, through “publications and writing, public protests and presence, individual case work on LGBT people in crisis.” One member says “The use of law and policy as symbols to mobilize around ... is critical.”

If Section 377 goes down in India, its fall will echo through the region. It will raise the question of what comes next. An anti-377 activist points to future priorities:

• Employment schemes, ID cards [for hijras and others denied recognition for gender nonconformity], and other measures to match the economic needs of LGBT people. I don’t think we need to wait for Section 377 to do this [but] the possible removal of Section 377 would be an ideal moment to gain momentum towards goals like this.
• Working with police and other authorities to reduce violence.
• Anti-discrimination legislation.
• Increasing mainstream cultural representation of queer issues.

Others worry that an agenda focused on “LGBT” identity, or on “sexual orientation” and “gender identity,” will neglect some of the most crucial social and political needs even of groups within those umbrellas. For instance, eliminating 377 and ensuring that hijras can gain IDs will remove some sources of abuse—but will not affect the criminal-justice machinery regulating and repressing sex work, overwhelmingly the legal pretext for the police impunity and violations hijras face. 

Groups across the region warn that the push for stricter anti-trafficking policies generates expanded state power over all sexualities in public (and often private) spheres.[12] For some, this links to how the politics of representation operate in LGBT movements—how “sexual subjects” are spoken for, not allowed to speak for themselves. A New Zealand sex worker activist relates how hard it is for people viewed as “sexualized” to be seen and heard as political actors, and condemns “groups that have no contact with sex workers purporting to be experts in the field.”

An Indian activist says, “We need more progressive funding on issues of sexual minorities and sex workers—most of the funding now is for HIV/AIDS work from conservative funders.”

For years, some activists in Asia have criticized the uncritical importation of Western identity constructs as templates for sexuality and gender. In Nepal, activism around “gay” or “transgender” identity has given way, in many communities, to metis (an indigenous Nepali term for biological men who do not conform to norms for “masculinity”) organizing and claiming their rights as metis.

Many also question the weight placed on national-level lobbying at the expense of local work. A Sri Lankan lesbian and transgender group says it is shifting its efforts from political advocacy to “sexual rights and sexual health awareness programmes at grass roots level to change attitudes toward sexuality ... We prefer to work with CBOs [community-based organizations] in rural areas around the country.”

An Indian attorney observes that hijras’ real rights will hinge on their voting in local elections, where the authorities most affect their lives. In Tamil Nadu, an activist says, “While most MSM-related advocacy in India has focused on repealing archaic sodomy legislation in the Indian Penal Code ... there is a dearth of advocacy work happening with municipal governments, or panchayats. ... Most work to date in India that focuses on MSM has been focused on urban spaces. Considering 70% of India lives in rural spaces, and sex between men [is] very much a reality in villages, we work in rural spaces—and firmly believe that more work needs to happen in this space.”

Groups also look to non-social-movement allies. “Singapore depends massively on foreign talent to drive its economy, and the government is sensitive to corporations’ human resource needs. If our organization can get access to corporations and lawyers, and catalyse the documentation and demand for equal treatment of LGBT employees,” a range of demands, such as repeal of the sodomy law, might come within realization.

In Indonesia, LGBT activists, after cautious bridge-building with the Ministry of Religious Affairs, have quietly engaged in dialogues and trainings with young imams, raising issues of sexuality and gender. Such an initiative, in the home of what historically has been one of the most syncretic versions of Islam, has potential resonance far beyond the country’s borders.