COMMENT Every single year on Nov 20 since 1998, there would be candles lighted up throughout the world.

Each country has a point person or a group related to the International Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) movement that will call up everyone from the LGBT community to the general public to come together, and reflect on a year of transgender murders, with the hope that one day, it will all stop.

This happens to be the year of Fallon Fox, Laverne Cox and of course Caitlyn Jenner in the US and also a year where transgender-related deaths doubled there compared to last year.

With murders so often, one would think there is an open season upon transgender America. And we are already facing massacres throughout South America, along with many deaths recorded even in Europe.

For the past many years when TDOR comes, a prominent feature would be the tiring yet necessary practice of reading out the list of names of the dead to remember. Because these are lives that hurt no one, yet in many countries, there is a consensus that they deserve death.

In TDOR of previous years, we shared about the young transgender girl who got hit again and again by her boyfriend and his friends with shovels until she died. We shared about this transgender girl from the Philippines whose body was cut into pieces and some were left boiling in the stove by her Caucasian boyfriend.

We even shared about an eight-month-old baby that was shaken to death by his father because apparently the father felt the baby looked more like a girl than a boy. This year’s commemoration list is no different.

A total of 271 reported deaths worldwide, and countless more unreported or unaddressed deaths due to gender status. The details are still gruesome. Stab wounds. Strangulation. Multiple gunshot wounds. Beaten to death. Run over repeatedly by a vehicle.

There was one found with a knife stuck on her neck, and even one who had transphobic slurs shouted at her before the knife struck. Many bodies were dismembered. The violence worldwide is real and brutal.

Malaysia, on the other hand, is actually at a crossroads. Yes, things are not really so bad here. Transgender people who were arrested by religious authorities ended up having their hair shaved off and sent to prison. Some complained of sexual abuse. Nothing that is comparable to what is happening overseas. Thank moderation!

I personally agree with my straight friends that the transgender community complains too much and is too lazy to better themselves as citizens of this country. However, there have been growing reports of some transgender people being beaten and attacked, though it was isolated in the rural areas and the cause may not be transgender-hate related.

While the nine deaths from 2008 to 2013 within the transgender population in Malaysia may or may not be due to transgender-related violence, there is an uncomfortable feeling of what may come and impact the transgender population in our country, due to the increasing Islamisation and religious extremism, in the future.

Circus acts, cheap comedy

The ruling coalition leaders' regular declarations pitting gender non-conforming people, in most cases people born transsexual, at odds with the official religion of this country, calling their gender an enemy of Islam or incompatible with Asian culture, summarised how badly treated transgender people are by a democracy that was supposed to protect them.

In fact, such hate speech gives ammunition, and somewhat approval, for some primitive and paranoid individuals to instigate potentially life-threatening circumstances upon an already misunderstood minority.

Coupled with the popularity contests and victim mentality from the transgender groups of the community, along with the total lack of information to the grassroots on their plight, the population is worryingly marginalising themselves away from society into a very vulnerable state.

It does not help that most Malaysian transgender people are socio-politically weak and economically unstable, and many are being enrolled by their only friends into sex work believing it is the only way for them to survive, without being presented with other alternatives which would help take them off the dangerous streets of red-light districts around the city, into more secure futures.

Until today, the Malaysian general public still refuses to discuss and be informed about what transgenderism is about, let alone understand the implications if one is born transsexual, and they are contented with just viewing transgender people as human beings, without realising that such ignorance breeds contempt at the presence of transgender people, from the habit of misgendering to equal but separate treatment.

Postings on social media, especially on Facebook, continue to project transgender people as circus acts or cheap comedy, serving up small doses of bias and prejudice that would further alienate the general public from seeing the person in a transgender individual.

Videos making fun of transgender people are seen as normal, with the largely cisgender population expecting acceptance of such as a small matter to them, without realising how one sided the power dynamics can be; as often said, satire is for the weak against the strong. When it is used by the strong against the weak, it is ultimately cruel.

Bridges need to be built for transgender people to finally take part in society, as it is fundamental in fostering acceptance and understanding of a community of people mostly born different.

It is problematic enough that the medical fraternity in this country has chosen to ignore the scientific evidence and clinical treatment for a medical condition that has no cure, and instead allow propagation of long unproven 'rehabilitation', using religious means.

It will not be the first time in history of mankind that medical conditions which the unread do not understand are met with religious treatment.

Collateral damage

There is a cultural warfare that is going to start soon against transgender people, initiated by those who cannot accept a medical condition that entails gender transition and sex reassignment due to the sensitivity of an Asian region obsessed with sexual and gender presentation and fixing roles to what a female and male should look and behave like, made even constricted by religious laws which fail to address who they really are.

And sadly, transgender groups here continue to fail in their ways to educate the general public. They even recently attempted to use an incorrectly presented argument during a highly publicised court case against religious laws that accidentally assumed transgender people as mentally insane, adding fuel to fire at the grassroots condemning transgender existence.

Most transgender people in Malaysia are being further discriminated to the fringes, at a level much lesser than the Myanmar cook or the Bangladeshi labourer. They are trapped in the cycle of sex work, and affirmative actions have been concentrated on sex workers’ rights and HIV prevention, rather than improving their quality of life and taking part in civil society.

They will be the first collateral damage to any excuse for violence. It is very easy to do so, when one can claim the authority of god that transgender existence is the sign of the end of the world, without realising that being a sign, does not mean transgender people will cause judgement day. It is so easy to pick on the weak when the world cannot give you what you want.

As you read this, tonight they will be on the streets. They need as much help as they can to escape the faux comfort zones given to them by their peers, but they are still out of touch with most of the world around them.

We are still a country that is moderate and friendly to all, but with the rise of xenophobia, racism, and now religious discrimination, we are fast regressing to an intolerant and hateful society, especially at the grassroots.

We are better than going backwards, so please, give the opportunity for them to have more than the life they know, to have the same meaningful and beneficial friendships, and the equality to achieve the same dreams like the rest of us could, instead of leaving them uncared and at risk of potential violence.

We all need to band united in the face of threats by religious fundamentalism. Why not start encouraging the ones who face the most problems from it?

If we believe in our place and rights as minorities in Malaysia, then we must also afford the same for those even lesser than us. Give them the chance to share more and speak about their lives, and give ourselves a chance to really know and understand them, so we can all move forward, together.

There have been no reported deaths of Malaysian transgender people for the past two years, and hopefully none that are unreported. Let us keep it that way.

Penang’s transgender panel ready to fly, says DAP rep

VIVIENNE 'YUKI' CHOE is an ex-transgender activist and reluctant advocate who still believes everyone deserves that fighting chance for a better tomorrow.