Transgendence

One of the good things from the so-called “Wedding of the Year” is the publicity.

Though some opined that they should have done it quietly and not generate so much attention.

But what is so wrong about two people in love getting married? Why are people so set in their thinking that they can’t bear to see two people who are different from them, pursue the same goals and path to happiness?

It took Joshua Beh six proposals to get her hand in marriage, because Jessie she was “Terrified of ruining his life, she rejected his proposals - even though it broke her heart. There was nothing Miss Zhong would have liked more than to be married to her boyfriend of two years, but her love for him stopped her from saying yes.” [Taken from here.]

Besides that, it really incensed me that some people are calling this a same-sex marriage. They believe that Jessie was born a woman and thus she is a woman. A pastor even called her "half-half".

Taken from Bernama:
Asked on their sex life, Chung, who described her sex life as "fantastic" said they were satisfied living as husband and wife.

On whether they would have "children", she said that they have no plans yet at the moment.

Perhaps Bernama has its own "ideas" about sex, that it is somehow "different" from normal sex. Why, their "clever" minds even think that their children will be "special".

These woefully uninformed people are clearly unaware of intersex or hermaphrodites and all sorts of other genetic variations like Turner syndrome and triple-X syndrome.

It all comes down to two things actually. Fear of the unknown. Fear of things that are not in black or white. So much fear that one can’t even think straight and act insensitively and inhumanely.

Surely you would also have noticed that the ones who are objecting are mostly males? Yes, that’s the second thing – the perception that a patriarchal society is being threatened.

How? No idea.

Probably husbands who are already married would want to marry their best male friend and that some women perfectly happy with who they are would want to have a sex change.

The Malaysia government clearly state that they can’t change the gender in one’s IC (identification card) because it’s based on the genetic and biological sex at birth.

It’s silly, really.

People change all the time. When one applies for IC at the age of 12, a picture is taken. Why require people to change their IC when they’re 18?

I still look like the same. I still have similar features – small eyes, sharp nose, wear glasses, etc.

For the simple reason that the IC should reflect the person currently, your present physical aspects and not someone 10 or 20 years ago.

That’s the logical part. The other part is political and religious of course. If the government were to allow the change in gender on the IC, it would imply that the they support transsexualism, or at the very least, is OK about it.

It is also a disturbing fact that society in general can’t distinguish between transgenderism, homosexuality, bestility and bisexuality.

This was apparent when Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil said "to make a thorough study of the problems and issues affecting the transgender group, such as homosexuality, bisexuality and same-sex marriage."

Furthermore, a lot of people still think that homosexuality and transgenderism is a Western import. Thus they used the all too familiar argument of “This is against our Asian culture and values.”

Yeah, and so are automobiles, mobile phones, decent toilet facilities, kissing, using forks and spoons and shopping malls. Aren’t those things foreign too?

Moreover, what are Asian culture and values anyway? Bound feet, women not looking directly at men when talking, polygamy, arranged marriage, young girls stop schooling when they are twelve, no holding hands between couples, etc?

Are Asian values synonym with good and Western culture bad? How does one separate what is Eastern and Western anyway, when many things are getting homogenous and practiced in a lot of countries?

We all know that homosexuals and transgenders have existed since the Greeks and ancient Chinese dynasties.

Coincidentally, this issue is brought up on Fridae, where Alex Au said that Asian countries should document our own queer history.

That if we were asked to prove “that homosexuality didn't come to Singapore – or Cambodia, Philippines, Korea, Indonesia, Thailand or whichever country you're in – from the West. He wants you to prove that the first documented case of homosexuality in his country occurred before the farangs (Thai for westerner or Caucasian), gweilos (Hong Kong/Cantonese term which literally means foreign devil), mat sallehs (Malay term to mean westerner or Caucasian) and angmohs (Hokkien term which literally means red hair) showed up at the Nation party.

And frankly, most of us would have a hard time doing so.

What do we know, for example, of homosexually-inclined people of our own Asian country who lived two generations before us? What was it like to be homosexual in Shandong in the 1920s? In Malaya in the 1940s? In Vietnam in the 1960s?

They left little record of their lives. What thoughts filled their private moments? Where did they meet? What did they themselves think of their deepest longings? For answers, we generally have but blank pages.

The absence of history however, is not without consequence. We shouldn't be surprised that many people go around thinking that homosexuality never existed in our local cultures until imported from the West, and on that presumption accuse us of being misguided and see homosexuality as a threat to traditional culture.”

Being queer is definitely not some foreign, decadent culture from the West. It has always been around, but with very little visibility in the past, if at all.

People of all levels of society has missed the forest for the trees. It all boils down to this actually – two people who are happily in love and want to spend the rest of their lives together. Everything else should be secondary.

Is that not too much to ask? Apparently, it is.

[In case you were wondering, there is no typo or spelling error in the title.]