Refuge for gender-bender

By Marc Lourdes

KUALA LUMPUR: A 38-year-old Malaysian transsexual was recently given refugee status in Australia.

Born male, she had undergone a sex-change operation in Thailand.

She went to Australia last year on a tourist visa and worked illegally as a fruit-picker.

However, she claimed refugee status after being apprehended by Australian immigration authorities.

"In Malaysia, I do not count as a person," she told tribunal member Rosa Gagliardi when her case was heard in February.

"I am not considered to be a woman because my identity card says that I am a man."

Her statement was enough to convince Gagliardi that Australia owed her protection obligations under the Refugees Convention.

It is rare that transsexuals are given refugee status.

Transsexualism is recognised as a valid medical condition under Gender Identity Disorders within the International Classification Of Diseases (ICD-10) by the World Health Organisation.

Between 1994 and 2008, only 12 transsexuals were given asylum in Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

Last year, the media highlighted the case of transsexual Fatine Young, 36, or Mohammed Fazdil Min Bahari. Young had married a British man and faced deportation to Malaysia for overstaying.

The Australian case has dismayed, but not surprised lawyers and academics.

Lawyer Simran Gill said it was alarming that a Malaysian citizen had won refugee status, considering how high the standards required for it was.

She said applicants for refugee status needed to show a "well-founded" fear of persecution.

"For a Malaysian citizen to be granted refugee status implies that the international community perceives Malaysia's human rights violations to be as gross as countries such as Myanmar and Afghanistan."

She added that people do not often get refugee status on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation.

Prof Dr Teh Yik Koon, an academician who researches transsexuals, said it was time Malaysia looked at transvestites as human beings and not deviants.

"You can't just look at religious issues alone.

"You have to also take biological issues into account."

She said there were many transsexuals in other countries who had high-flying careers as surgeons, scientists, lawyers, inventors and others.

"In our country, there is so much discrimination that they can often only be sex workers," she said.

Transsexual female Yuki Choe, 34, said transsexuals in Malaysia faced four main challenges in life -- school, healthcare, jobs and housing -- aside from the institutionalised problems they encountered.

In school, Choe said, they were subjected to bullying and name-calling.

However, it is the job market which poses the greatest difficulty for transsexuals.

Choe, a sales executive, said out of every 100 job applications she sent out, only five gave her interviews.

"I was asked to maintain 'a corporate image'," she said.

Often, the kind of jobs open to them are in the media, advertising, public relations and in creative jobs.

"Movies that depict transsexuals based on idle speculation or stereotyping, do not make things easier but instead, perpetuate more myths and promote further misunderstanding."

Choe said many other countries were far more tolerant of transsexuals than Malaysia.

This includes Singapore, where once operated, a person can change his or her documents to reflect the new gender; and Spain, where a person's legal status reflects the gender rather than the biological sex.

Malaysian transsexual Fatine Young married Briton Ian Young, and faced deportation to Malaysia for overstaying.