1869, Episode 140 with Benjamin Hegarty, author of The Made-Up State

6:42PM Nov 2, 2023

Speakers:

Jonathan Hall

Benjamin Hegarty

Keywords:

indonesia

indonesian

form

trans

spaces

kinds

indonesians

guess

term

book

women

public

dress

visibility

people

practices

context

dutch

benjamin

acceptance

Welcome to 1869, The Cornell University Press Podcast. I'm Jonathan Hall. In this episode we speak with Benjamin Hegarty, author of The Made-Up State: Technology, Trans Femininity and Citizenship in Indonesia. Benjamin Hegarty is McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow in Anthropology and Development Studies at the University of Melbourne and a Research Fellow at the HIV AIDS Research Center for Health Policy and Social Innovation, Atma Jaya Catholic University. He has published articles in the Journal of Asian Studies, Transgender Studies Quarterly, and elsewhere. We spoke to Benjamin about the complexity of transgender rights during this time of growing visibility in the United States, Indonesia and globally, the historical relationship in Indonesia between race and gender, and how they were governed through regulations on dress and appearance, and the culturally sanctioned areas of public life than Indonesian trans women have been allowed to participate in both past and present. Hello, Benjamin, welcome to the podcast.

Hi, Jonathan. Thanks for having me.

Our pleasure. Our pleasure. Well, I'm excited to talk to you about your new book, The Made-Up State: Technology, Trans Femininity and Citizenship in Indonesia. It's published by our Southeast Asia Program Publications imprint. Tell us the backstory to the book, what inspired you to write it?

Yeah, thank you. So I first traveled to Indonesia, in the late 2000s. So I'm not sure whether everyone knows where Indonesia is. But it's a long archipelago nation in Southeast Asia, from Australia traveling from Australia, which is where I am, it's about, you know, five, five to seven hour flight away to major Indonesian cities. So relatively close. And a place that a lot of people traveled to for, for holidays, are particularly to Bali, given its proximity to Australia. So I went for an Australian volunteer international program, a little bit like the Peace Corps, I guess. And I spent time working for a civil society organization there. What struck me when I arrived in Indonesia, and spent that year in the capital city, Jakarta was the immense energy and vitality of the civil society movement at that time. So a lot of activists, a lot of different kinds of movements, and a lot of kinds of forms of political protest happening. So in amongst that were really interesting forms of queer and feminist political movements, or forms of interest. So these were not only kind of engaged in I guess, you could call specific kinds of issues, single sign that kind of identity based issues, but they seem to have wide coalition's with different different actors and movements, so with Labour movements, with indigenous peoples movements and with others, so it was a really exciting time. However, against that backdrop, and precisely around this time, in Indonesia, what was happening was, you saw the rise of a kind of anti LGBT or a kind of anti queer form of backlash, you could call it against claims to recognition by queer and feminist organizations and groups in particular, what really interested me was how, I guess, in the context of a post authoritarian context, where you had a very long military dictatorship in Indonesia that ended in 1998. In the aftermath of that, in the kind of democratic opening, if you can call it, you would imagine that you would see a kind of flourishing of these liberal politics and in a way that you did, what really interested me, I guess, and what got me interested in this topic was, was how the public visibility of particularly trans Indonesians who had previously not not been really considered much of a problem at all, suddenly became a new kind of problem, a new kind of political problem. And that took place when they apparently when they when they made particular kinds of claims and efforts to gain a space in in the national, imaginary.

Interesting. Well, so what you would what you said just now that the trans women in Indonesia are more publicly visible today than they have ever been in other times of history. But this has not necessarily translated into increased levels of acceptance or recognition in society. Tell us why that is.

Yeah. So I think there's a couple of things going on. So in Indonesia, it's interesting because I think one could say that although Indonesian trans women and I think the terminology here is a little bit important, so might just give a quick overview of the terms that I use in the book. So, yeah, so. So in Indonesia, the the term that I'm calling a kind of trans femininity. And I use that in a sense, like a kind of, in a way, it's an effort to use it as a kind of adjective to describe the kinds of practices that the people that I'm referring to engage in. However, in Indonesia, of course, people, the people that I worked with, and alongside don't refer to themselves as trans feminine people, or necessarily some, some may nowadays call themselves trans women, but the vast majority do not. They call themselves or identify themselves as one of two terms nowadays, waria, or transpuan. I'll focus on that first term, because it's the more important ones into in relation to the historical focus of the book. So waria is a combination term, and it's made up of two separate words. It's made up of one Indonesian word for men and one is an Asian word for a woman, wanita and pria. So, it kind of repurposed as binary gender in a novel way, in a way that might be unfamiliar to many, many listeners. So what what in a sense did was to take a kind of binary notion of gender, and to claim that you could kind of hold together two forms maleness and femaleness in a single body, although, of course, in the case of wealthier, they generally describe themselves as having a woman All right, and that that woman saw manifests in practices of feminization that I described in the book. So that's generally the terminology that's used. So in the case of of waria, that term is relatively new, that term only really was kind of established or came to be used in some form since the late 1960s. So what that suggests and I think what the really important important point here is that that term was a key vehicle through which widely acclaimed a form of public visibility, and that public visibility was linked to particular kinds of spaces in the Indonesian context. So where where you were able to limit themselves in the sense to particular kinds of spaces where they were seen as suitable. So those spaces in particular are willing to spaces of consumer capitalist femininity, of bodily consumption spaces like salons, spaces, like I guess you could say, malls, other kinds of contexts, where, where you would imagine feminine skills that at practicing femininity being valued, then it was okay. Right for for for waria to be present and visible. What is distinct from that now is I guess, the distinctly political form that that forms of claims to trans rights. And at times LGBT rights, although not all body a will identify themselves or align themselves with with LGBT rights, or, or even trans rights, but probably more commonly, trans rights. So what's distinct about trans rights? I guess it's it's more encompassing claim to recognition. So it's desire for kind of a form of recognition that, that confers, I guess, rights as as as citizens that are inherent to them being trans in a sense, that's, of course different to the kinds of efforts at mobilization and visibility, claims to rights and recognition through the spaces and practices that were managed to harness throughout the 19, particularly the 1970s and 80s. Like work in beauty salons, say, which waria equated with, you know, forms of good deeds to society, that in doing so, they would then obtain forms of recognition. But of course, those were limited to the spaces in which the waria perform those they may have some flow on effect, but generally, it meant, the waria were understood to be accepted when visible under certain conditions.

What, where are the waria, as far as political rights are concerned? Where do they stand at the moment?

Yeah, I think that's a really interesting question. I think the last the last 10 years have been really challenging and difficult in ways that you and I didn't really see or anticipate when I started this project. That's for the reason that Indonesia, as I kind of mentioned earlier has, so in 1998, the Indonesian kind of military general was was forced out of Suharto was bossed out. And following that kind of democratic process of reform has taken place where there's been, you know, elections, general elections, presidential elections, and so on. As I said, you know, I came into that context in the late 2000s. And I found it a kind of very exhilarating moment, and a very energizing in the West. At the same time, however, I guess that that's base for the democratic space has given rise to certain kinds of populist voices and movements, among them, I guess, forms of political Islam, and other groups that that see expressions of, I guess, feminist, and queer LGBT expressions of national identity, expressions to be incompatible with, with the nation. And so there's been efforts made to I guess, really push, push what you're out of not only what you're, of course, but but gay men, lesbian women and others. But I would include what it is push them out of, of the public sphere. And this is oftentimes in or framed in terms of what those kinds of list act as cold rejection, but don't let gun poor luck. So rejection is a very, as you can probably imagine, is a very harsh expression. Because it historically, Indonesian waria has sought and thought that they had achieved forms of recognition. So in the sites that I had mentioned, or acceptance, rather, is probably the better way to put it. So penalty man, acceptance in contexts where they were seen and respected as members of society, as equivalent to others because of the work that they did, because of how they held themselves specific practices. So why do you have to imagine themselves to be holding that acceptance in particular spaces that may not have been complete, but it was enough to make do to get by, and it was enough to be able to live a livable life. However, what what took place from the mid 2000 10s, really was this, this huge mobilization of, of what was termed as rejection to a like LGBT. And that really, I think, surprised a lot of of waria, and really kind of deeply shook their sense of, of belonging in the nation. So that kind of hard fought position that they had managed to achieve was not as secure as they imagined it to be. And part of that is, I guess, this this distinction between what you can imagine as social kind of rights, rights that you can you can achieve and legal or legislative, you know, rights to citizenship. Now, whether you had really none of those latter, latter, latter rights, of course, the same as any other Indonesian citizen, they had, they had rights, but even those seem to be relatively tenuous, under the false pressure of this growing populist kind of call for rejection, the rejection of certain kinds of, you know, LGBT T identities from from the net national fabric.

Interesting, interesting. Well, it's interesting also, I mean, we're talking about the present in the past couple of decades, but your book goes way back. And in looking at the, the Dutch colonial authorities and their ideas of rejection and acceptance based on clothing, and dress appearance. Tell us more about this relationship between race and gender and dress and appearance.

Yeah, this is really interesting. This is really interesting. So oftentimes, when we think of the impact of colonization of colonialism, on, I guess, forms of gender diversity in indigenous societies, we often think about, I guess, kind of legal constraints on particularly on the criminalization say, of homosexuality, the criminalization of what was called termed cross dressing at times, gender nonconformity in different guises. Now, in Indonesia, you didn't really have any of those things present. So neither neither homosexuality nor processing were illegal. They may not have been exactly loved or adored by by Dutch colonizers or the Dutch colonial establishment or military or members of that kind of milieu, but overall, they think it would have been more or less Just regarded as any other practice in a way. What? What is distinct about the Indonesian context and where you begin to see moves to regulate dress and appearance is the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and Arnout Van der Meer, in another book in the, in the Southeast Asia programs series describes very nicely the kinds of ways in which Dutch colonial rule was extended, I guess, you know, the racial kind of aspects of Dutch colonial rule and racial identity, were police through what people could wear. So dress was really central to, I guess, to racial identity to governing race, in the Dutch East Indies. And so in particular, Indonesians were not permitted to wear European clothing by and large. Now, that changed in the early 20th century, when Indonesians began to protest this as a kind of form of exclusion from, I guess, a form of inequality. So that they, they were not they were, they were seen in a different way. They were prohibited from wearing particular kinds of clothing, and therefore they were prohibited in acting as, as modern, modern people. And so dress was, in fact, really central to this kind of form. And appearances are really central to challenges to state state power was important to the Dutch control, but it was also important to challengers to Dutch rule. So at that time, you had the appearance of a what were called Indonesian dandies, so Indonesians who would wear, you know, kind of elaborate European costumes, you know, with with with nice scarves, and eyeglasses, and so on. And these caused a lot of hand wringing, I guess in the Dutch press at the time, because they were seen as kind of oddities, who had left the Indonesian roots behind what kind of inauthentic subjects. Now what's so interesting is how similar are the kinds of narratives around Indonesian trans women. Now, the term of course, and that is, again, there's a different term that's used slightly earlier called buncee. But in any case, those those Bunty though there's there's, there's figures who there's people who dressed in women's clothing in public, were often kind of labeled and described in along similar lines. So and they were they were what, what took place. So there's one article that I discovered, published in 1951, describes a raid on a public place where female sex workers and, and bunchy sex workers are gathered in the center of Jakarta. And what's so fascinating is the way in which the author is at great pains to point out that it's not so much a problem, that they're kind of wearing women's clothing in and of itself, but it's the fact that they might deceive others. That is the key problem. And that kind of concern about about appearances about deception is precisely the same kinds of anxiety that that kind of permeated Dutch racial discourse. So what I'm really interested in, I guess, is the way in which a lot of those concerns about I guess categorical purity and of course, the cut the the kind of crossing of categories seem to be transferred on to or through in internal forms of differentiation within Indonesian society. And gender or or rather, sex is probably the better term to use was the key key form one key form of governing difference that was imagined to be shared by all Indonesians. It's also important to note, so interesting about that early concern about buncee, about trans women wearing women's clothes in public was that it would have been very unusual for any Indonesian to be wearing women's clothes, including women themselves. So Indonesian women by and large only really started to wear women's clothing in public in any in any major way, you know, up after independence as well. So really wouldn't wouldn't have been so remarkable in a sense for Bunty to be or trans women to be wearing women's clothes as it would for anybody to be wearing what was called women's clothes. what was meant by that was Western women's clothes.

I was just gonna ask. Okay, so Western women's clothes.

Yeah. So you know, and I think what's what's so interesting is that that women's clothes what I'm calling women's clothes. Exclusive blame really refers to it, you know, I think Western is probably not quite right. But International is the best way to put it. But that's right. So, you know, generally, you know, European American, you know, perhaps, you know, there's kind of a kind of form of East Asian, bought in clothing there. But generally these are intimate and international style, rather than a specifically national in nationalist Indonesian style, which, which has its own look and appearance. But this is kind of women's clothing as, as probably as is common. In many parts of the world today, not all of course, but yeah, kind of form of modern, international feminine dress. You know, makeup includes kind of styled hair, which, which is longer, blouses, dresses, and so on. And in this article matches native the specifics of the style themselves. So what they look like, where the, where the fashion has come from, and so on.

That's really interesting. And it's amazing to see how far we've come in the same time, how far we haven't come, because you had mentioned that there are still these unwritten rules, particularly since the late 1960s. The importance of adhering to like these very clear aesthetics of feminine beauty. So having the, perhaps the the international clothes, and the makeup and the hair in this particular look, that is described as beautiful, that if a trans woman was able to reach that level, then that would be accepted, and they would be able to participate in modern society. Tell us more about this.

Yeah, so. So I guess it kind of is tied closely to the spaces that we open this conversation with, right. So, under certain conditions, Indonesian waria would be able to achieve a form of of acceptance and recognition, but only only if they were able to accomplish a competent and even skillful form of femininity. Now, of course, this differed widely along axis of class of geography. Now, Indonesia is of course, a very large place. There are a lot of different kinds of people and styles and aspirations. And I think a really good space or context to to look for or understand this is to think about kind of an ordinary beauty salon, which is probably present in almost every Indonesian small town or city, which is run by a waria is maybe less so the case today, but it certainly was the case, at least until you know the 1990s. But in any case, where where you are kind of fulfilling a function in making up people for special events and occasions in particular, so that's the kind of role for example, or whether you will play so it might be for example, wedding makeup would be one role that while you're undertaking that, that setting, so in being really skillful and competent at making up other people's so not only oneself, but other people, then you are kind of participating in a kind of national culture, wedding makeup is a good example. Because of course, marriage is a really important ritual, you could say and in a way legal kind of contract that binds you into the nation that ties you to the nation. So it's an important expression of national identity, and belonging and communal identity as well. And so in participating in that ritual, through making up the bride and groom, in the bridal outfit, what it articulates that they too, are belonging to Indonesian society. And this has been a kind of important sign in which nobody had been able to do that. So that's a site where where do you belong, right? So this is the kind of ideal scenario. Now, if we look the other way, if we think about what were what are imagined, not long, we'll have a much more tenuous, vulnerable longing, you wouldn't have to go very far, you probably just walk out of the salon, and you might be a slightly different time of day, but you would much later at night, but you would walk down, you know, one or two side streets, and you might see somebody, again, less this is less the case today, but certainly was the case even until 2000s that you would see what he you know, along the street at night, conducting sex work. So this is, you know, relatively common, you know, or alternatively carrying a small speaker and seeing through a microphone, kind of a form of busking or street performance. You could call it So both of these are these practices, and they're both forms of making money as well banned according to many Indonesian city regulations. So what what takes place if if, you know if what he kind of noticed or seen by city authorities and specific kinds of police, so look really audit public audit police, why they are usually arrest or chase the chased. And they're arrested and they're taken to nowadays what are called rehabilitation centers where you know, they might be given a fine, they might be asked to participate in certain kinds of, of training, which would invoke you know, for vocations so that they could make a living in a way that is not causing causing district disrepute, or disrupting public order as the most common expression. And indeed, the regulation that prohibits those activities suggests, but they will be given training in skills like makeup and skills, like salon work, hair cutting, and so on, and so forth. So, in order to kind of move them away, or rehabilitate them out of these kinds of unruly forms of public appearance. So what you can see, I guess, in this process is that, what am I able to participate in society, but in a way that structures their public visibility, so their public visibility is only permitted under certain conditions, it's a highly kind of conditional form of public visibility. And so, these other these other forms of these other practices of making a living, and of indeed, building communal life, so for weary often these are kind of collective experiences both sex work and, and street performance, they bind people into a kind of sense of working together with others, in some sense, like like unions. These are not permitted and indeed prohibited, seen as a disruption of public order and of moral order. So I think the relationship between these two forms of visibility which is tolerated, and even under, under some conditions accepted, and that which is, again, under some conditions tolerated, or it's not seen or placed in the dark, or rejected, is a really of two really important polls, to think about what trans visibility means in Indonesia, and how claims to citizenship are made and what that kind of texture is.

It's so, so interesting. And I can see the parallels with the trans community in the United States, and in the West, You many times you learn a lot about your own country by looking at another country. And so anyone that is listening to this, I encourage them to, to read your new book The Made-Up State: Technology, Trans Femininity and Citizenship in Indonesia And it will give you insight into your own country, but also the fascinating world, both historical and present day of Indonesia. So thank you so much Benjamin for for writing the book and for coming on the podcast.

Thank you so much for having me.

It's a pleasure. That was Benjamin Hegarty, author of The Made-Up State: Technology, Trans Femininity and Citizenship in Indonesia. If you'd like to purchase Benjamin's book, use the promo code 09POD to save 30% On our website, which is Cornell press.cornell.edu If you live in the UK, use the discount code CSANNOUNCE and visit the website combined academic.co.uk Thank you for listening to 1869 the Cornell University Press podcast