Tag Archives: transgender

“Are you a friend of Mr. Eddy?” – “Mr. Eddy? I knew her as miss.”

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The humming parade of countless motorcycle wheels emits a cloud of strong fume in the air of  Sunday morning Yogyakarta. I try to keep my breath as I swing on my motorbike through they hideous traffic trying to make my way to the house of the parents or my lost friend. She only died this morning. It’s my last day in Indonesia  before heading back to Europe, which now seems as far as a blurry dream. I’ve grown so much into this world here, this life, this reality, and just after the last night good-bye party – the terrible news.

“Is this the house where the funeral is being held?” I ask modestly.
A young woman trying to find some shelter from the heat of the sun asks: “Are you a friend of Mr. Eddy?”
“Mr. Eddy?”
Right, she had mentioned me the name though.
“I knew her as miss, Miss Sisi Renata.” In Java it’s always a customary to use gender-and age-specific titles.
My eyes travels to the open room, in the middle of which stands the coffin. In front of it there’s a black and white photograph portraying a young man dressed in black suit. His looks is very serious, even sad. Next to the photograph there are some candles and sad flowers. And again I hesitate – am I still at the right funeral?

Sympathetic and modest Sisi Renata grew up in a poor family in Yogyakarta Old Town. Her mother raised her and her siblings alone, which in Indonesian patriarchal context is anything but simple. She wiped away the tears as she told me about her mother for the first time. She did not want to disappoint her mom at all, but already since little she had felt differently. She often found herself playing with girls and in early puberty accidentally fell in love with her male teacher. Later, she kept her love life under strict secrecy, and every night before going to bed, she held a spiritual wrestling with God, to try to deal with guilt of her “abnormalities” and ask for forgiveness for the “sins” she had committed in her fantasy world.

Sisi had worked as tour guide. Once she got an affair with one Dutch visitor. Their  remote relationship with regular meetings lasted for many years, they travelled through half of Indonesia. The man noticed his Javanese friend’s inner brilliance and sharp wit, and decided to give him – back then as Eddy – a respectable amount of money for education. Through her education and life experience she slowly began to move towards deeper self-reflection and harmony. And she realized that she had a soul of a woman, has always had it!
One day her Dutch boyfriend found an elegant lady in front of him when taking her out for a date. Sisi was employed for support organization for warias, where she was an outrage worker for waria sex workers and support person for HIV-positive warias living in the shelter.

Sometimes at weekends, she came up as a singer in clubs, dressed in fluffy bright green, singing tears touching ballads. To her mother, however, she never revealed her new life – she just did not want to create such a burden. Although it was obvious that the heart of a mother surely knows. Also, many guests at the funeral didn’t seem to have much idea of Eddy’s journey towards her better self known as Sisi Renata. Until she was suddenly knocked down by tuberculosis. 

This time we have a guest photographer here – funeral photos by Monica Dominguez. I love her and her touch in photography, see for yourself! 

Party in the hills, Papuan special

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This night ended with a Papuan waria crying on my shoulder. In the distance there was a big car stuck in the soft grassy ground trying to speed off – to be exact, all the cars that had climbed up to the hill between Abepura and Jayapura were big and they expressed the wealth of the driver or the company in the car. Above us was a fabulous starlit sky, which here, away from the city hustle, seems as powerful as ever. N isn’t coming with us, “N is flying,” as P says, whose chubby boyfriend is sitting on the back of the motorbike, kicking his heels. P is a driver, the dude is sitting comfortably behind her. And on my shoulder there’s a frizzy haired drunken waria from Serui tribe crying. She was crying over the most important thing. It felt as if all the inevitability of the destiny of the warias culminated in her tears. Love. Love that seems so impossible, love that’s so unreachable. Because between the frequencies of their bodies and souls there’s suddenly some phallic extra.

“What happened? Are you sure you don’t want to go home with your boyfriend?” I asked.
“No, we’re over”, she shakes her head and wipes the tears off. “I don’t need you anymore! We’re through!” she yells once again to the guy who has vanished into the crowd. A few moments ago they’d clung around each other’s necks like love birds. I’d admired the sugar face that cool waria had found for herself.
I’d met L the same night around nine when she’d finished her work and was going home. On her way she’d stepped into U’s salon, where I with N, P, her boyfriend and a few other guys were killing time. We were talking in the hot N salon, where the air seemed to have stopped moving. There was sweat dripping from her neck to her wide cleavage, and a glinting circle appeared on her forehead that was surrounded by her frizzy hair. I remember that when we were talking about sex work she told that she didn’t do that much anymore, because she has a job. Every time she goes out with friends, she goes home at 1 am, langsung tidur, directly to bed. A few hors later we were hanging at Kali Acay and I noticed a beautiful guy trough my camera, a guy who wasn’t shy at all to be in the picture with a group of warias. A second later I saw him sharing a bike with L, they were both so happy. L gave a gentle kiss on the guy’s shoulder, and then she was impishly playing with her fingers near his groin. For me they looked like a hot couple and I was puzzled when the same sugar face came to me to beg my phone number, L still hanging around his neck. N set the things straight: “Her number is exclusively for warias only, khusus untuk waria.” Of course the guy tried his luck a few more times. Unfortunately I had no time to meet with them again, although from a researcher’s aspect it could have been interesting.
Our party started at U’s salon, where we had ordered a few bottles of a weird transparent drink, called Jenefer. Jenefer is bottled into a huge round one-liter bottle, it’s like gasoline and it’s often mixed with green Sprite. We closed the salon’s windows and doors and tried to gasp some air with a help of a fan or a piece of card board. It’s still unbearably hot, although it’s long after 9 pm. But of course no one of the neighbours or people passing by should see we’re sitting with a group in a salon that was opened a few moths ago and drinking alcoholic beverages. Not that it would be something that’s done very rarely on Papua, but social harmony is highly valued here. P’s boyfriend poured a shot of the green bubbly drink and passed it on, the beat coming from the big speakers set under the ceiling was ticking in everyone’s head.
P was seemingly worried when the shot reached me – because I was with a motor bike and I had told him that I didn’t have too much experience driving a motor bike in a Papuan night. But N said it was nothing, because the people in our country are used to drinking alcohol, there’s nothing to worry about. N seemed to have a lot of respect for our distant country. For example, once she introduced me repeatedly as „Cece, dari Estonia, ibu-kota Amerika.” Meaning, I’m from Estonia, the capital of America.
People nodded agreeably. Who wouldn’t know America?! It sounded so wicked that for a while I didn’t dare to correct her. I was giggling on my own. Estonia – the capital of America.
Despite of me having long term health problems on Papua, and of the weather being sweatting hot, and of being in a some stress arising from my research, I still thought I’d know my limits between social drinking and drinking that scatters the state of mind. It took about 3 shots. Actually it wasn’t the alcohol, it was life itself.

Everything must be good for something – meeting my key informant

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„Aah! So you were studying the warias?” one fleshy security guard asked me, his eyes glittering. The word waria (or banci, as people often know them, although it bears some negative connotations) has a kind of magic power that makes Indonesians’ eyes glitter and smile on their face, of course unfortunately, this often a sign for ridicule. “This here is a waria! This is a waria!” he points at a guy who’s delved into the bed. The guy is probably the clumsiest and shiest, and thus is probably chaffed all the time.

 
Granny manifests: Legalize! a few-hour stop-over on Serui island

Already in the evening of my first day on the boat I had a feeling that this boat trip might be something I really need. I wandered on the deck, talked to people and had started going back to the cabin when I suddenly turned around. I noticed a interesting-looking girl, who apparently was a waria. Her name was Amanda. She’s from Bali, but for the past ten years she’s lived in Jayapura, where she’d escaped with her sweetheart from Solo. They had lived ten years in Jayapura like a man and a woman, but now they’ve finished their relationship. The man returned to Solo to marry a woman. I asked if her heart ached. And again, to my surprise, she too said it didn’t. “I’m happy we got to be together so long,” she tells.

Amanda went to Ambon and back. She’s travelling with three other people who sell coffee, snacks and cigarettes on the boat. Seems that many finance their trip that way. Standing there like that many gave me their hand to say hello and a few more words. One drunk Papuan man started babbling in English “oh, I’m talking to a waria, it’s a waria!” he mumbled as if he couldn’t understand what was going on. To illustrate what he’d just said he made some awkward dancing moves.  Already then I was afraid something insulting might be on its way, because there’s nothing that could be more tactless than a drunk Papuan. But the man said: “Yes, these are warias, they have trouble within themselves, but they are here, they are just like you and me, they are part of the world in Papua!”

On the contrary for the worst that I had expected, it seemed the man was moved that I,  a visitor from afar, had amongst the thousands on the boat chosen the only waria to talk to. This incident also illustrates something I realized during my three weeks here – Papuans take warias as something natural to the “modernized” (“indonized?”) world, they see waria as a colour, and what could they really have against beautiful, fun, sexy and well dancing warias? Since when have Papuans been those who dictate morale and order arising from it? This has always been the task of Indonesians or of Indonesian central power, who historically don’t really like the frizzy hair and the chaotic lifestyle of Papuans. If waria is a part of their “developed” world, so be it! A Papuan gets drunk and is delighted to have fun in the company of tall light-skinned Javanese warias. Why not?!

And Amanda became my most favourite girlfriend in the next town we landed.

SEX&MONEY!

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Ayu is a waria in Sorong, full of character, and especially renowned for her hairdresser skills. When I once again stepped into her salon, she offered me cake and asked a neighbouring girl to bring me some more cool ice tea.

Ayu cuts Staria’s hair in the popular Ayu salon in Sorong.

As I had expected, a few minutes later a customer came in. The young guy took off his cap, illustrated with a cannabis leaf – very much a style of Papua- , and sat himself on a chair in front of a mirror. The cannabis theme on Papua creates interesting connections, it kind of refers to the Jamaican rasta and reggae culture, but then again it here marks the arising pride of the darker skin colour. So far I have met no real rasta-man. If I’m lucky, I can tell that I’ve met a few people who can say that they’ve tried cannabis and it makes them dizzy. But this guy here isn’t Papuan, he’s from Makassar, like many other in Sorong. He gives Ayu 20 000 rp and in his yellow angkot-bus  he drives away.

Satria has worked on Papua for seven years already, mainly as a driver. He drives a yellow angot-bus, for which he has to pay a rent of 150 000 rp (15 EUR) a day, plus 100 000 (10 EUR) gas money. If he drives a full day he can make about 500-600 000 rp (50-60 EUR) – one passenger 3000 rp, two passengers 5000 rp. Which means he has about 200 passengers a day. To make the ends meet he has to have at least 70 passengers a day. If he skips a day or two he has to work harder later on.

„But nevertheless it’s better here than in Makassar. Makassar is troublesome (Makassar susah),”  he told me. When Satria came off a boat in Sorong seven years ago he had 30 000 rp in his pocket. He started from nothing. (And in a way he still has nothing. Because you can’t put a lot aside here.)

When he joined me on a drive to the red light district in Sorong a day later, he stopped at women standing on the pavement and asked them come on his bus. He commented: “I’m trying my luck, money for cigarettes.” But these women there, had different things in their minds.

It was already in the 1970s when the Indonesian government allowed legal prostitution in certain areas (lokalisasi), after what hundreds and hundreds prostitutes arrived from Java and elsewhere, too. Among them also the first warias arrived in Papua. A colourful urban legend states that later HIV-positive prostitutes from Java were sent here – it might have been the government’s conspiracy of how to infect local Papuans, who are the top clientele of the prostitutes in the so called “West” (Papua is geographically in the east, so they see the rest of Indonesia as West) – the poor Papuans have come to the city to make some money in mines and elsewhere. Not that I believed that there’s something true about this story but the legend tells a lot about the relations between Indonesia and Papua, and it also comments on the local sexual behaviour.

The red light district in Sorong is huge and its streets are well-ordered, the architecture of the houses points clearly at their purpose. Women were sitting in front of the brothels, in pavilions, and men were walking between them. Judged by the eye, there were about 300 women working.

There, in the red light, Satria, in his cannabis illustrated cap, sighed, if he had the money he’d definitely go in.

Saturday night – the night of the week we all get spoilt

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Malam minggu or Saturday night has a special meaning here in Indonesia. This is the night of party, or as one of my friends here said: “The only night of the week, when we all get spoilt – kita semua hancur!”

Meanwhile I had already moved to downtown, to be closer to the night hotspots of the city and see what’s happening in the nightly worlds of the waria. The main hang-out area Tembok Berlin is just around the corner.

The only issue seems to be the fact that this here is not the typical Indonesia, which could be described as rather safe, even when being a single foreign woman at night-time in party locations. Some young warias warned me about motorbike taxis, which are very common means of transport in Irian Jaya: “Don’t you ever use the motorbike taxi at night! They pick you up, take you somewhere where they have group of friends waiting. Then they rape you – all of them!” Supposedly this has happened around here already quite a few times.

One of the nights we were driving to the southern market area in Sorong where there was some open-air party a’la Papua. We stopped the car, took a brief look from the windows and my waria friends stated: “No, no, this is way too dangerous – we can’t go out, you will be beaten up and you’ll get a knife!”

I saw bunch dark shadows of the Papuans dancing drunk in the beats of dangdut music – the kind of party no-one could imagine happening in some dark downtown spooky market area. Papuan spirit. And a drunk Papuan unfortunately is a very common stereotype here, and for a reason – you could really see a lot of drunk Papuan people on the streets, lost in life, probably discriminated for some generations. But my friends just couldn’t let me out to check out this party and we drove off to safer grounds such as Tembok Berlin.

Starlight nightclub stands alone and proud and glorious in Kampung Baru, Sorong, Papua

As it was Saturday night, warias were all nicely dressed up and beautifully shining. One of the older warias was sitting on the wall and proudly poring out strong local liquor – one for the waria elder of Sorong, another one for me, then again to the elder. Until it was time to head on clubbing.

I remembered my friend who’s a local minibus driver here, whom I met one afternoon when he was visiting a hair salon held by a waria. In just some minutes he picked up all the warias and other chicks, so the whole minibus turned into a wild and wicked party-zone heading towards more party. We all seven warias, four women and the driver and his friend took off with a deep beat of dancehall sounds, and it all just reminded me too much of the infamous scene in Wariazone where me and Kiwa together with some nine warias were riding around Jakarta nightlife, singing Indonesian anthem. And of course, it was Saturday night! Wish I had a camera with me up there in Papua, but see the scene of Jakarta in Wariazone trailer:

In Papua, when talking about the waria, commonly people point out  that the parties where the waria are present last the longest and get most crazy. This seemed to be the case with our night in the biggest nightclub in Sorong – the Starlight, or SL as the waria call it. Interestingly, the security took a brief look at us and asked exactly the ticket money for seven people, as if the ‘real ladies’ get in for free, and the warias (as if they were considered ‘men’) should pay the whole price. I tried my best to negotiate, but they were stubborn, and it was really stinking of discrimination based on gender.

But as we entered, the party got wild. There was a band from Yogyakarta, followed by a hot dance party, where the sweat took hold and strip-dancers lifted our sexuality. Some of the waria tried to use me and Minna to get connection with men, and I, of course, was happily playing along. Minna seemed to have a crush on the hottest strip-dancer, who then poored some vodka in her mouth, dragged her on the stage and we were all shouting: “Hancur Minna, hancur Minna!”

This, by the way, is a popular dangdut song here in East-Indonesia, which translates as ‘spoilt Minna’ – a girl who went from village to the city, stayed there for too long and lost her morals.

Zone of freedoms: how a boy becomes a waria at Berlin Wall

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When mentioning our fatherly careful uncle that some of these nights in Sorong I’m going out to Tembok Berlin (translates as Berlin Wall), his eyes filled with fear – this is dangerous, people are drunk there, orang mabuk!
A lovely waria Miranda also warned me that sometimes you can be attacked with a knife at Tembok. But Tembok is precisely the place where most of the waria in Sorong gather at night, so there is no question for me – I have to get there. Tembok Berlin is the heart of the city that runs, as the name says, as a wall along the coast current. This is the city’s most popular place for enjoyment and rendezvous (“tempat Santai”). Here we have great gorengans, coffee, tea, grilled bananas and luxurious durian. This is the meeting point for all young people in love and all secret lovers. Among others,  both female and male prostitutes hang out here, and latter being even more popular, because having a same sex partner can become a good smoke cover.
“People who pass by then just think that you’re meeting some old school friend. Nobody knows that this will be followed by sex, so your family relations will not be at risk, even if you’re having an extramarital partners,” my friend, who’s active in the local gay scene, told me. And it does not mean that the customer is necessarily gay himself.

But after all, this place is called Berlin Wall and there has to be a reason other than just being a wall. This here is the house of liberties of Sorong. On the one side of the wall we have the city, cars passing by and the numerous sweet aunties selling snacks and coffee, people chatting, having good time. But the other side is wilder – here we’ve got warm see breeze, green waves in constant move, along some trash and young people secretly making out. The zone of freedoms along the Berlin Wall.

It was there were I met a sweet young native papuan waria from Biak. Her story seem to be quite representative for the case of papuan waria – she had escaped from her family to another city, because the family couldn’t cope with the child’s non-conforming gender identity. So here she is now – hanging out with the waria of the city, trying to learn about her new life, and the salon work. Her dream is to open her private salon one day. To finance her life, she also comes here at nights to prostitute, just like her friends. When after an exhausting night she returns home, she prays. For her sins. When I asked her, what exactly she sees as her sin she has to pray for – is it her being a waria, is it sex work or is it something else? She replies: “This here…” While all other warias are joking and laughing just next to us, she tells me with glassy eyes that she only does it for money. She doesn’t get any satisfaction from it.

“Miss Angola!”cries another sparkling waria to sheer up my papuan friend, when she walks across the street in her sexy short pants. She rolls some hips as a reply to the girls laughing. Of course, our gender expression is constructed under various forces, just as feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir has stated that one is not born a women, but becomes a women.  What I experienced at Tempok Berlin could rather be seen as how a “boy” becomes a waria. It’s how a waria becomes to be here at the local Berlin Wall – zone of freedoms for some, zone of sins for others, zone of pain and hopelessness for some. Whatever it is – we have to break on through to the other side. Here that would be to the side of green waves and warm see breeze. Sounds like freedom, right? Yet so often the other side comes along with random sex for random money, wanted or unwanted, that takes place between the piles of hopeless trash on the beach.

Buginese princess: the making of it

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A sufficient amount income for the warias who work in salons, comes actually not from daily hairstyling, but from wedding preparations. Every other week, if not more often, this is the waria who makes the bride and groom pretty and decorates the wedding room. Already at our very first meeting Jaka was thinking that we should do a make-up session, to make a Buginese bride out of me.

When I looked at the photographs of some other brides I had seem before, I thought this is a way to big job we can experiment with. But Jaka told me to relax and give her an hour. And so we did it.

Pardon my narcissism if it looks this way, but I wanted to share the whole process with you. The making of it. The making of a Buginese princess. It took around one hour to cover all my face with powder, attach some fake eye-lashes, paint my forehead, my eyes, my lips, make my hair amazing and dress me up. Jaka could explain every detail of my outfit, some for Allah, some for adat (the local culture).

I felt I was turned into a princess, a Buginese princess, that has to do all the dirty work in the kitchen and elsewhere, but still, she always has to be a beautiful princess and smile. And later when already married, get pregnant, and smile. Just as most of the women in the world, just as we are so often expected.

All photos by Minna Hint

Makassar: pleasantly mad

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Jaka is a chill-out waria in her 40s. She has a quite popular salon in downtown Makassar, where she keeps  herself busy from morning til night. Once I caught him straightening girls’ hair until 2am.

Makassar, Sulawesi

But she always wakes up early in the morning, brings fish from the market, serves the first customers, cooks the fish, she is social with all her friends who constantly come over to hang out in her salon. And it’s always raining in Makassar, so it’s a good spot to wait until another shower is done and they can make a move.

As it was Saturday night, and this is the night when all people in Indonesia take it all with fun, some young even say they go hancur – they go crazy. So Jaka took out her high heels and we went for a rendez-vous in downtown. The city was full of young people, there were crowds of guys with all their crazy motorbikes. Built up and wild, retro machines, and the busy bikers with their blinking motorbikes. There was also a lot of crowd hanging around the waria hot-spot. Jaka knows the girls, but she’s already grown out from nightlife of the youth. She doesn’t bother anymore to go out that often. She has a salon to keep and a boyfriend with whom she feels happy with.

We stayed at her salon for couple of days, and truly enjoyed the company of Jaka.

Jaka and Minna

Makassar: who gets the business, and who don’t

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I had met Jaka already previous time in Makassar. She had a pretty popular salon in downtown, pleasantly busy each day. Eka suggested we can stay at her salon and get to know her better. Eka was her junior.

On the way to Makassar, we met a party of warias around the area. We stopped and had a chat, I took a photo.

But Eka had to hurry, because she had an important meeting in one of the big hotels of the city. Makassar is the capital of Sulawesi, and its huge. There are big roads and colorful neighborhoods, something for everybody, including the rich fucks, as the anarchists would see it. Eka was sitting attentively behind the desk together with couple of other ladies from the village, who are running good in business and have some extras to invest. The hotel had some 20 floors, we all were served expensive fruit cocktails and chocolate cake – rarity in Sulawesi. There was young and smiling man explaining on a fake iPad how the money they give starts to grow. Like a tree. It’s growing. They could all see it in the graphics. The arrow moves up, more money is coming back. Especially when you give in bigger sum.

But how?

They never asked.

Eka has played with investing before – she has got already two cars. “From internet,” as she puts it. Maybe she’s been the lucky first one, or maybe this is the reality of Indonesia? Economic crash has not touched this base here, Indonesia is booming, but it still has a long way to rise. 

Actually I was invited to come over to Makassar to screen “Wariazone”. Professor Halilintar Latief, the largest researcher on bissu on earth, and that’s true, invited people from various background and different religions to see the documentary and have an open discussion on the matter of the waria in Indonesia. Makassar is a well-known hub for warias, although lately they are crying more of the lack of basic economic needs. There is so many people, so many warias and competition is high. Even when you open a salon. It feels unsafe to work on the street. And again I can’t help of seeing the social reality that is behind this situation, that is creating it. This is because of the narrow zone for the waria that is left out there. This is exactly the socially constructed playground the warias are trapped in and which thus also shapes their identity. Zone, zone, wariazone.

Granny has a secret

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Would you ever think that this lovely old lady was born some 80 years ago as a boy? No, of course not, nobody would ever think of it. As far as everybody remembers her she has always been this sweet old lady wondering around the village.

Only that she somehow never got married and has no children of her own. But she has many grandchildren from her sisters, who would never guess that their granny has a major secret – that’s her male genitals and an ID-card of laki-laki (a man in Indonesian).

But does it really matter?

Personally I follow the feminist criticism on biological determinism. I don’t agree that our gender is supposed to be in accordance with our sex, that literally based on our genitals the whole society should be divided between men and women only, and there’s no room or just a tight one for any alternatives, both, in the scope of possible genders and sexualities, and also within the substance of these possible gender and sexual identities.

I think the case of this old lady – the oldest transgender I have met in my life -, who is living in the middle of the tropical village life, very down to earth, simple life of sunny and rainy Sulawesi, surrounded by rice fields and green hills, brings out fabulously the relativity of sex-gender pairing. Any foreign visitor, even an anthropologist, would see this world here ‘traditional’ – still out of the reach of modernity and globalization, that theoretically would bring along ‘the sexual revolution’. Yet this ‘traditional world’ here has reached far further than most of the societies in the West, taking the problem with gender with far more ease.

Granny can’t talk much about it, as the children are playing around and she wouldn’t want to let them know. But she brings out her ID-card where her sex is stated as a man. As Bugis culture distinguish between 5 genders, she has probably led a decent life as a calabai (male-to-female transgender) and finally people even forgot about that, seeing her as she is, whatever she wears under her skirt.

“Oh, stress!” – an anthropologists and a transgenders struggle for existence in front of the police and the bureaucracy

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We had long planned a trip to Makassar next morning, so we tried diligently to reach Segeri village by seven o’clock in the morning. With some delay we were ready waiting by the roadside. But somehow, Eka wanted us to meet her in her salon.  There was something important she needed to talk to us. Smelled bad. 

As we arrived, Eka blew up large foams. The question was whether I had a letter to confirm that I am here to do my research. Apparently last night she had been harassed by the police until one o’clock. Because of me, because of what I was doing here.

The police had actually already asked twice for my papers, visa and explanation for my research, but the truth was also that before leaving Java I didn’t know exactly which village I will be based in. Then of course I did not have such a letter. Eka, however, strongly insisted that I would obtain the letter. Initially I was trying to find some more flexible ways, because I honestly just did not want to cause my partner organization Gaya Nusantara from Surabaya any unnecessary burden. Obviously this is another case of bureaucracy, because why on earth I possibly could not be here for a week and visit some priests as a so-called normal person?!

But here in Sulawesi, as I understood now from Eka, it is required to notify the police twice within every 24 hours, where I am and what I do. They want to know my reasons for being here, and foreigners are not allowed to stay at the local people. Although I had talked to the police already twice, they still want the official confirmation of my existence.

Based on my previous experiences in Russia and other places of power, I already knew that this must be the local face of the so-called nasty little power. This little power has to create their legitimacy themselves, it has to require their power, and thus it often becomes nasty.

Big mosque of Segeri village

Eka was eating fast and furious, saying out load, that she do not agree to give me an interview, if I do not have such a letter. She provocatively walked to the kitchen, and continued eating there. She said she’s afraid. Also she claimed that the police had already took 200,000 rp from her after hours of negotiating last night. She said that to me, however, from the ends of her lips only when we were alone in the room, so, be cursed my distrust, but I’m not completely sure that this was not one of her white lies. I asked, why did she do that, after all, the police do not have any legal grounds to request the money! Eka shrugged. She’s afraid.

And I can understand her. I am pretty sure that Eka (and I) were harassed because of her non-confirming gender identity. And I am pretty sure that Eka was so resolute with me and with the police, because of the very same reason.

Being a sinner in the eyes of Allah, and marginalized anyway, she does everything possible to keep herself clean and to become an exemplary citizen who has good relationships with the police, the bureaucracy and all the aunties of the village.

Eka cries and raves, then demands me to eat with her, although I have absolutely no appetite after all this chaos early in the morning. She insists the number of my supervisor, and calls him. I was already preparing the letter, as we got teared in a car, because now, all of a sudden, we really need to rush to Makassar. Rush to the wedding.

Whose wedding?

No matter!

“Oh, stress!” Eka cries.

“I can’t talk to you on Friday,” said the shaman between mundane and divine, man and woman. Maybe s/he was lying.

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Would you give up your gender and sexuality in order to talk to God? This is what came forward to me right at the cross-road of generations, local shamanic belief and Islam in South Sulawesi. 

Although I found many more thrilling aspects here in South Sulawesi, my main interest of visit was the holy personality called the bissu. These local shamans connect not only the divine and the mundane, but also the femininity and masculinity, on a very real grounds. Namely, most probably the bissu is also a calabai, locally, or a waria in Indonesia, which is globally rather known as a transgender. Bissu is seen as the 5th category of gender here in Bugis culture, the para-gender, that somehow accumulates all other genders in the society.

We were driving across the dirty and slippery village roads with Eka to give one old bissu a visit already on the very first day I was around. There were mosques sitting in the bushes every 400m or so as we were driving. The mosques resembled me some cosmic stations, and indeed they were often decorated just as Chistmas trees, bling-bling.

One of these simple Pippi Longstocking’s style of houses a bissu Nani was living. S/he was pulling together her shirt while I entered the house and I noticed hir breasts. But surely s/he was born as a man. On the wall there were some photographs of hir dressed in a bissu’s ritual costume. This was shaded by the huge fake photograph of Mecca in golder frames, which are the very common elements of interior design here around Sulawesi and Kalimantan, somehow less apparent in Java, which I think just has to do with current fashion and market availability.

I was handing hir over a plate covered with necessary gifts for the spirit. There were some betel nuts, special leaves, some cigarettes and a note of 20 000 rp. We also brought a bunch of bananas. You can’t go to meet a shaman without thinking about the hunger of the spirits, you need to bring an offering.

Bissu invited us to hir room of the spirit, which usually most bissus have in their household. The room was fully dedicated to serve the spirit, an altar was in the middle and there were all kinds of little baskets, rocks and candles around, which s/he seemed to know the meaning, and perhaps there wasn’t anything more complicated than the bare fact that these were all to reinforce the communication with the dewata or the world of spirit. But as we started to talk with Nani, and Eka seemed to be really anxious and not too much at the level of transcendence, Nani said that today is not the best day to have further conversation.

“Why not today?” I asked.

“Because today it’s Friday, and this is the holy day in Moslem. Better we talk some other day,” Nani explained.

“Is there a conflict between these worlds?”

“The spirit does not really want to come out on Fridays…”

Eka stood almost immediately up and started to make a move. That is her common way of restlessness. But I was confused.

The curvy dagger called kris is the most important accessory for bissu

I got even more confused when the next day we were visiting another old bissu. This time without the presence of Eka.  She somehow didn’t want to come. The bissu couldn’t believe that there could be any conflict between the world of dewata and the world of Islam.

“There’s no problem with Friday to communicate with the spirit,” s/he said. Apparently s/he was the kind of leader of the bissu community here, not that it would place hir spiritual capabilities anywhere higher, but this respected bissu must know something about the most crucial issues – and the relationship between old local belief and mainstream Islam is definitely one of them.

Here most of the bissus also go to mosques to make their daily prayers. And besides, they can always use their personal tempat dewata (the place of the spirit) in their household to get in touch with the God. Almost all bissus I talked to agreed that these worlds are actually the same, just the way to reach them is different. And I have to admit I agree with it, because I understand it (and this is almost the only reason why I tolerate institutionalized religion – most probably it can get you in touch with the same transcendence). And here the bissu even gives blessings to those going to a pilgrimage to Mecca!

I only later got to realize what might actually be the issue, why bissu Nani didn’t really want to talk to me that day when I went there with Eka. Because this very Eka sometimes likes to write a word bissu behind her name, just as she enjoys the friendship of the local authorities. And yet she’s a busy businesswaria and happily in love with her husband.

Once she was trying to get into the bissu community, she was learning about it, I later hear some rumors around the village. But how couldthe younger generations of the waria possibly dump there daily carefree lifestyle and literally give up of their gender and sexuality in order to talk to God?!

“This is when I was a bissu,” said the young waria and proudly showd me the picture.

Ready for some dangdut dancing?! New Year’s party in the village turbulence of Sulawesi

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It took me a few days to realize that I this life here, with all its local dedication to traditions, not to mention the cosmic and blinking mosques that are seated across villages in every kilometer or so – life here is still something that some gender activist in the West could only dream of. 

!0 minutes before midnight: we’re ready! Minna and I with all our great calabai friends

I remember hanging out in Eka’s salon with bunch of people observing casually how young waria Upe is dressing herself up. She puts on cute yellow dress and is busy with make-up. Eka encourages me to ask here where she’s going.

“Mau ke mana, Upe?” (where are you going?)

“Cari cowok” (looking for a man) she whispers me, as if passing over a secret which only we, the women, or at least the ones opposed to the men, if nothing else then at least in this case sexually, could only know about. Apparently there’s a spot in one of the neighboring villages where all the men interested in a trans-partner gather. And it do not necessarily involve money in action, it’s a mutual attraction.

Upe making herself beautiful before heading out

Couple of days ago it had been the New Year’s Eve. And as the colors of the local village life started vibrating more and more, I had no desire to go elsewhere than to stay here with my new friends. I even invited my friend Minna Hint to come over from Makassar. And Eka promised to throw a party in her salon. Everybody’s welcome!

Eka is a very energetic, spontaneous and impetuous personality. She seems to enjoy attention and power, but she’s also in no worry, and she’s great. And it seems to me that all the young warias of the village see her as their role model – she has a salon, she has a husband, she has friends. So she was smart enough to take a mild use of having me around to build up her reputation.

“… from Europe, studying MY gender, already doctoral!” she used to stress when introducing me to make it all sound bigger and better. And it almost became like a routine, that every day she introduced me to some 2 or 3 important friends or people with power. And I had nothing against contributing to her success in PR, would be great if Eka made it becoming the first transgender head of the village in Indonesia!

So when the New Year’s party was in our garden, I even didn’t have a chance to have my first bite this delicious fish Eka’s husband was grilling, when I was forced to speak to head of the village, and the vice head of the district and couple of prestigious businessman from the area. And then Eka wanted to give me a make-up, which became the excitement of the night for many warias, women and kids around, before we headed on to the village central to some wicked dangdut party around midnight. Dance, dance, dance, me and Minna were pulled up on the stage to dance in line with all these wonderfully moving calabais. The party was crazy. I wouldn’t find any better word to describe the potential that was explicitly directed for all the village folks from the dancing stage, rather than admitting that it was sexual.

And ironically, that must be my first completely sober New Year’s Eve since childhood. Alcohol is forbidden here, so even if there was some, it was all moving secretly under the table. But also there was almost no way to get any! With Eka we were driving around all the local brew-makers earlier that day to find us some tuak (light palm wine), but no success. And to be honest, I even didn’t miss it. I had already got drunk of life. Make-up by Eka

The queen, the boss, the beauty: life around Eka’s salon

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Soon it came out, that my host Eka, who I knew was supposed to be the transgender holiness, the bissu, but who daily identified herself rather as a calabai or waria, and a proud one, was actually the Queen of the whole village.

Everywhere we go there were people she knows, everywhere, especially in the worlds which are dominated by women, such as markets, shopping areas, the social gathering spots here or there. But the Queen of Them All, she was still in her Kingdom, in the beauty parlor that was called by her name – Salon Eka. Welcome!

When I first entered this weird ghostly house, where people only lived on the first floor, the second floor was for ghosts and spiders, I had no idea who’s living in this household and where exactly they sleep. I was placed to sleep in the main salon room, where she usually sews (and she’s good, she’s so busy!) and where it gets busy in the mornings. On the walls, there are pictures of her and a man posing just like a newly married couple. Eka really enjoys everything that has to do with beauty and style and decorations and celebrations. That’s her work, her life, and her desire.

And her customers are satisfied. So much, that sometimes it can be pointed out, that the myth of warias having an extremely good sense of style, proves to be working in real again. She’s a busy woman. She was making me an occasional space for sleeping and herself went back in her bedroom. To get there you had to pass a wide area, which can be viewed as a kitchen, but which is basically everything a space can be. There’s also a huge exercise device – a bicycle, where she sometimes exercises, just like the most modern women who would do that in their city apartment where it can be difficult to leave the cozy flat and run around on some asphalt. There she was training, rats sometimes sneaking behind her and always some other people, as her salon was an important social gathering place, for men and women and all possible transgenders. Including her husband. Supposedly her husband already was married once, with a cis woman, who gave birth o two children. Then he fell madly in love with Eka and since then, already for nine years, they have shared some love, work and fun in life.

She had five people working for her. Including her husband. There was also a young strong man. A couple of warias, some ever-smiling women. Apparently many of them are sleeping just behind the narrow wall of room for spending nights. They are sleeping in the most magical room in this house – the very heart of the Eka’s salon. This is where she makes her art. She makes her art of make-up and of styling up the groom and the bride, who perhaps met some two-three months ago, but are eager to marry.

Then the whole family comes together, enjoys some lovely food, that some ten-fifteen women were cooking all day the day before. They exchange some news, take a lot of photographs, sometimes there’s a guy who shoots a video and burns it on a DVD within a couple of days, sometimes there’s some ceremony, sometimes there’s an amazing dance by the bissu, who enter into state of trance and present how the dagger does not enter their body. This is because they are already possessed by the spirit, that has made them supernaturally strong.

Rest of the time everybody eats and drinks water from the single-use plastic cups and wishes best luck for the newly married couple, who were just dressed up by some professional waria, in this area, most probably by Eka. Who also decorated the whole house for this special event, where eventually though the couple gets really bored.