Brunei's LGBT Community Faces Terrifying Future

In Brunei, being gay could soon be punishable by death.
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Once the third phase is rolled out, activists are worried that the country will crack down on the LGBT community. This final phase, which was slated to be implemented later this year or in early 2016, will reportedly involve the introduction of executions for “offenses” like homosexuality and adultery.

“In Southeast Asia, the country that has the most worrisome state of rights for LGBT people is Brunei,” Ging Cristobal of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission says. “[The community] there is really concerned about their safety.”

LGBT activism in the public sphere is non-existent in Brunei, and based on anecdotal reports the small community that does exist keeps itself well hidden. Brunei was the only country in ASEAN where not a single LGBT person or advocate was willing to step forward to share their story with HuffPost -- even anonymously.

Brunei's LGBT Community Faces Terrifying Future

In Cambodia, Some Families Still Try To 'Cure' LGBT Sons And Daughters

When Meas Sophanuth started to transition in high school, his mother -- afraid that her child would bring shame to the family -- tried to stop what she saw as his “unnatural” behavior.

She took away his phone, kept him at home, and forbade him from seeing his friends. She finally took her son to a traditional healer, known in Cambodia as a Kru Khmer, in the hope that the shaman would be able to “cure” him.

It was a traumatic experience, Sophanuth, who identifies as transgender, told the Phnom Penh Post last year. “After that, I did not feel warm to my parents anymore. They frightened me,” he said.

Such attempts at “curing” are not uncommon in Cambodia, where LGBT people are often seen as being mentally ill or as being possessed with “bad spirits.”

“Usually the Kru Khmer will chant something [at the LGBT person], sometimes they burn the head, back or palm,” Srun Srorn, an LGBT activist, says of a typical “curing” ritual. “When they burn they believe the bad spirits will fly away. Sometimes they use the bamboo to hit the person.”

Homosexuality is not criminalized in Cambodia, which is a predominantly Buddhist country, but marginalization of the LGBT community is widespread.

In Cambodia, Some Families Still Try To 'Cure' LGBT Sons And Daughters

The Dangers Of Being LGBT In ‘Tolerant’ Philippines

The Philippines has one of worst records of violence against the trans community. The murders of 29 transgender people have been documented in the Philippines since 2008, according to the TvT project, which monitors and analyzes cases of transphobia worldwide. This is the highest number in the Southeast Asian region, and the second highest in Asia -- though activists say that many murders of trans people go unreported in the country, so the number is likely much higher.

The trans community is not the only LGBT group that has experienced violence in the Philippines. There were at least “28 LGBT-related killings” in the country in the first half of 2011 alone, according to a 2014 UNDP/USAID report. These troubling statistics offer a glimpse into the marginalization and abuse that the LGBT community faces in the predominantly-Catholic archipelago.

On the surface, the Philippines may appear to be one of the more “liberal” ASEAN countries when it comes to the LGBT community.
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However, although “there is high tolerance here, there’s not real acceptance,” Ging Cristobal, a Manila-based activist with the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission, tells The Huffington Post.

Legal recognition and protection of LGBT people at the national level largely remains absent.

The Dangers Of Being LGBT In ‘Tolerant’ Philippines

'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