Video: Islamic Thugs Shut Down Jakarta Festival Waria Berbudaya [Cultural Transgender Festival]

JAKARTA – A transgender festival was forced to shut down on Monday night after an Islamic group armed with sticks turned up at the event to protest against it.

UPDATE  Festival Organizers claim police are in cohorts with the Islamists leaving them unprotected. Source: Jakarta Post


The Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), a fundamentalist group that aims to implement shariah law in Indonesia, claimed the organiser of the Miss Waria contest in Pasar Festival, South Jakarta, did not have a permit from the police.

“The local community did not want the contest to be held in their area. They asked the police if there is a permit for the contest, but there is not,” Salim Alatas, chief patron of the FPI’s Jakarta chapter told the Jakarta Globe.

“We will deny if there is such thing as a transgender contest in our country. It’s morally destructive and not educating.”

Witnesses said that FPI members wore helmets and were armed with sticks, but Mr Salim denied the claims, saying that his men were unarmed and came in peace.

South Jakarta’s Setiabudi Police precinct head AKBP Lalu Muhammad Iwan confirmed that police did not issue a permit for the event.

Festival organiser Merlyn Sofyan, winner of Miss Waria when the event was first held in 2006, denied the show was a transgender beauty contest.

“It’s called Festival Waria Berbudaya [Cultural Transgender Festival], not a pageant where contestants are judged by their looks,” Merlyn told the Jakarta Globe.

“Festival Waria Berbudaya is an attempt to answer the wrong perceptions in our community by producing decent human resources of waria [transgender people]. It’s not going to be instant, but we’re trying to nurture them.

“If we’re talking about religion, who has the right to judge other people?”

All 20 contestants left the contest peacefully and continued the event at the Legal Aid Foundation in Central Jakarta.

Source: Bangkok Post

Video: Helena LGBT Human Rights Ordinance Advances Amid Fears Based on Hearsay

LGBT human rights activists and opponents of equality gathered in Helena Montana to voice support for and against the Non-Discrimination Ordinance.

Trans people and our allies also spoke against the proposed amendment restricting public accommodations provisions for trans people.

Apparently orchestrating the opposition was Joseph La Rue, legal counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom in Scottsdale, Ariz. a quasi religious organization, who spoke against the Ordinance.


Source: Independent Record: "The amendment to section 1-8-4 read: “However in any place of public accommodation where users ordinarily appear in the nude, users may be required to use the facilities designated for their anatomical sex regardless of their gender identity. Such requirements shall not constitute discrimination for purposes of this section 1-8-4.”
"The amendment, Thweatt explained saying he was ambivalent about its merits, would allow the owner of a business to remove a person who, for example, was born male but is now a transgender person who had exposed genitalia in a sauna."

"The explanation was in reference to reports of this happening at Evergreen State College, in Olympia, Wash. The college has disputed specifics of the incident. In a similar case, a parent of a swim club member complained of indecent exposure but local prosecutors there declined to charge the person."

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I find it outrageous that Council Member Thweat would site ONE  instance of hearsay to validate to discriminating against transgender people.
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