'We Were Treated Like Animals': The Story Of Indonesia's LGBT Activists

Aceh, located on the northern tip of the island of Sumatra, is known for its draconian system of Sharia law. It has a population of 4.7 million and is the only province in Indonesia where homosexuality is illegal. The LGBT community has been forced “into hiding” there, according to Reuters.

Earlier this year, the deputy mayor of Banda Aceh, the province’s capital, labeled homosexuality “a social disease that should be eradicated.”

The province, however, isn't the only place in Indonesia where it's unsafe for the LGBT community.

Though homosexuality isn't technically criminalized under Indonesian law, in many states, such as south Sumatra, anti-prostitution laws (where “prostitution” is widely defined to include same-sex intercourse) are used to limit the rights of LGBT people, and according to activists, the community is marginalized even in bigger cities like Jakarta.

“LGBTI people are discriminated against in just about all domains of life,” Dédé Oetomo, founder of Gaya Nusantara, the first LGBT rights organization in the country, tells The Huffington Post. Discrimination even happens in the work place and in schools.

Indonesia, which has the world's largest Muslim population, is mostly conservative and society is “very heteronormative,” Oetomo says. “The greatest challenge is still the immediate family.”
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Despite myriad challenges, LGBT activism has been growing in Indonesia. About 120 LGBT grassroots organizations are currently in operation, working primarily “in health issues, publishing and organizing social and educational activities,” according to the USAID/UNDP report.

Still, despite a relatively vibrant activist community, activists say real change has been slow to come. 

'We Were Treated Like Animals': The Story Of Indonesia's LGBT Activists