queer?

...

Long time ago, i heard the label queer as far as i can remember has some negative connotations like when a hetero cisgender person slutshaming some other male person for being too feminine (clothes and behaviour). Now its reclaimed for sure. When i was in college i heard the punk band Queer but they're far from being Queer, just another hetero-cisgender male group. And of course when analysing a situation like in this country we also must see the society, country's system that shaped its citizen. After mid 80s just as fatwa came out banning SRS/GRS (Sexual Reassignment Surgery or the new term Gender-Reafirmation Surgery) and the politicians purposely wanted to Arabize the country further, channeling all the money to religious institutions, groups, media, and so naturally shape our society and its mind. We still can see lots of Queer characters on TV (Mr.Os, Jaafar Onn, Dee Dee) solely for laughing purposes and thus people everywhere shaming 'assigned male person at birth' for being too feminine in clothing and behaviour and the situation in Malaysia is getting more and more rigid since 90s onwards until now. We have syariah law that prohibits every 'assigned male and muslim at birth' person in the country from wearing women's or feminine clothing. Most affected by this law are 'assigned Muslim at birth' Transwomen who's doing sex work on the street and in some cases in Melaka, the religious officer went into a salon and apprehend her while she's doing her job, and another was stopped at a roadblock, and the police called the religious officer to come and apprehend her while she's driving her family around town in that car. There are a big gap between the local Bahasa speaking transwomen group & NGO and also other NGO's who's mostly English speaking. Malay transwomen group have different priorities in doing activism than the other LGBTIQ NGO group.

The last time i was told off from my friend that "why i mix around with the crossdressers, we're not crossdressers". And often in Transwomen community events like we have a fair share of bad experience coming from 'the gay boys' who's sabotaging our events (calling religious police) and acting obnoxiously Diva as if it was highly respected. Eventhough Transwomen have many of effiminate queer gay friends but in our local community events there are many instance of bad experiences, thus Queer label have kinda negative connotations or a mixed-up translation to local transwomen or Bahasa speaking community.
Local government owned media often blanket transwomen and gay man together in the same group by producing movies that all this people in the end will either repented or just die horribly, which makes these 2 group similarly have the same villain but as in our system / society where race, religion, gender,class, language are often divided, there are not many events that we're often meet and discuss about our challenges and obstacles. Each group have different priorities.

When i was in Japan, i met a couple of group friends of mine who's taking me around some Queer events and in Japan LGBTIQ = Queer. I learn form him that being a Gay person or Lesbian their challenge  in society is or could be more challenging i suppose because of the rigid Gender roles in the society thus the term Queer is heavily used and more people coming out as Gender X which have no gender at all. I guess its just the natural phenomena rise from being in that society and system.

Recently the word Queer becoming more and more mainstream, i thought that hmm,...so i guess 'Queer' is a space for any of us to be whatever we want. A free space to be fluid, if coming from cisgender gay and lesbian person or even heterosexual its good space for them to be free expressing themselves whatever they want to be, let loose from their rigid gender roles. But for Transwomen and Transmen the term Queer is a good space when you are transitioning, but after fully transitioned are we Queer? For Transwomen and Transmen who's experience misgendering since young and gender dysphoria & suicide, what is it for us? what is the politic of Queer? for sure its a topic haven't fully discussed yet in the local transwomen or the transmen community...
#justathought #hmmm