Indonesia is an interesting place; one of the reasons it's on my tourism bucket list is because I've always wanted to try cobra whiskey. I've traveled in Asia a fair amount but in Japan and China, never around Southeast Asia. I do have a few old Vietnam veteran buddies and my former CIA friend who have spent a lot of time in the region, as well as a good friend who lived there for several years working at the Jakarta branch of an American company, so I've heard some interesting, firsthand accounts.
Some of those accounts involved some of the... let's say, amusements that Indonesia is notorious for.
This brings us to an account of how Indonesia is hitting a trifecta of first-world problems, with climate change's effects on "transgender sex workers."
Joya Patiha, a 43-year-old Indonesian transgender woman, first started to notice that changing weather patterns in the mountain-ringed city of Bandung were affecting her income as a sex worker a decade ago.
The rainy season was lasting longer across the West Java province, winds were stronger and in some particularly bad years Patiha lost up to 80% of her earnings.
Trans women like Patiha are among the most affected by extreme weather linked to climate change, as well as suffering disproportionately when disasters strike.
“No one is coming out during the longer rainy season,” said Patiha. “It is very hard to make money during that unpredictable weather.”
There are several things this story misses.
First, Indonesia has a long history of "ladyboys," and while many (but not all) of these people are involved in (let's call it what it is) prostitution, this isn't and never was part of the social contagion known as "transgenderism" in the western world. In modern times, apparently, some of them undergo sex "reassignment" surgery, but historically, the claim has been that they have "a woman's soul in a man's body," without really making any changes other than dress and mannerisms. But the one thing that runs consistently through this population is prostitution. This is a niche sex trade issue, much more than a "gender theory" issue.
It's the whole "climate change" angle that really completes the picture.
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The Indonesian government has set out a five-year plan to deal with the effects of climate change.
The Indonesian government has a five-year plan setting out its development objectives and how it will manage the impacts of climate change and although this includes provisions for vulnerable groups, trans people are not listed among them.
That may be because "transgender" people have been present in Indonesia for decades, but there's likely another reason, and one that should concern "transgender" people and sex workers alike in Indonesia much more than climate change; that is the increasing influence of Islam in Indonesia. Islam has been slowly gaining influence in the region since the 12th or 13th century, and is now the single largest religion in Indonesia. This has already started to change the way Indonesian society deals with the sexes, specifically the segregation of the sexes; Islam, one might note, is notoriously intolerant of "alternate lifestyles," not to mention sex workers. While Indonesia is not an Islamic state, enforcing Sharia law, there is evidence that some of the younger generations are increasingly turning towards a Wahabbist interpretation, which wouldn't bode well for the nation's "ladyboys" and sex workers.
Indonesia is not the United States, or Canada, or any of the various, tolerant European nations. The Reuters article I quoted here, "climate change" angle aside, is taking a Southeast Asian nation that's dealing with cultural changes, and trying to stick a Western face on it. That's not accurate. It's not helpful. And it's not a faithful representation of Indonesia's history or culture.
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