Gone to her death!

The Indonesian AIDS mail list is frequently more like gossip over the fence, with anybody who can write (even though often with difficulty) pitching in his or her two (or 0.2) cents-worth. But sometimes a topic comes up which makes us think. This was the case with a recent one from Robert in Jayapura.

He was asking from guidance: If a transgender person dies, how should he/she be buried? In this case, Robert was referring to a male with female gender identity. If her wishes had not been stated prior to death, how can we make a decision?

Replies came among others from Dr. Nadiar of the National AIDS Commission and from the waria group in Malang. Several raised the problem that, at least for Muslims, there is a different set of prayers at the interment of a male and a female. There's also the problem of washing the body. On the other hand, the Muslim burial shroud is apparently unisex. while in Christian religions, the body might need to be dressed appropriately. But the consensus was that if the diseased had left a will designating a wish to be buried as a women, this wish should be honoured. If no will, then the wishes of the family should be considered, although as one respondent noted, most waria have limited contact with their biological families. In the absence of direction, most felt the burial should be in accordance with physical sex, not sexual identity. But what about someone who had had a sex change operation?

To me, of greater concern is how they are treated in life. The waria group in Jakarta planned to open a nursing home for aging waria, because if they go to a state-run 'panti' (welfare home), they will be accommodated in accordance with their biological sex. We can perhaps imagine what it would be like for someone who had spent her life as a women then has to spend her twilight years as a man.

A number of similar problems arise. A couple of years back we heard that the hospital in Jogja was allowing waria to be admitted to a female ward - although having seen Lenny (a well-known head-scarved waria from Jakarta) in hospital with three-days growth of beard, I'm not sure how well that would go down with other patients in the ward.

One respondent also asked about prisons. Eli has discussed public conveniences. Where would it end?

Interestingly the correspondence did not consider transgenders in the other direction. Perhaps that's because we rarely if ever hear of female transgenders here - do they exist?

On a similar note, it was of interest that the scholarship application for the 8th ICAAP in Sri Lanka provided four options for sex. Still trying to work out what 'other' might include...


As perhaps you may have noted, I try to find an appropriate quote for my subject lines. For those of you you (like me) would have to look it up, here's two stanzas from Thomas Hood's The Bridge of Sighs, from which I took today's title:

One more unfortunate,
Weary of breath,
Rashly importunate,
Gone to her death!

Take her up tenderly,
Lift her with care,
Fashioned so slenderly,
Young, and so fair!

Babé