Two months since LGBTQ+ community members from across the Asia Pacific gathered in Sydney for the region's first World Pride, the fight for queer rights in Malaysia remains a battle against legal discrimination and social stigma.

No one knows this more than LGBTQ+ activist Dhia Rezki Rohaizad, who says the public’s acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community has not progressed as far as he hoped. 

“Queer identities, no matter how you view it, we are extremely politicised,” Mr Rohaizad says.

Mr Rohaizad is the deputy president of non-profit organisation JEJAKA, which translates to ‘young man’ in English. The organisation aims to be a support group for queer men in Malaysia, offering a wide range of services including health, legal and social support.

JEJAKA operates in a hostile legal environment. Malaysia practises a dual justice system, divided into civil law (applicable to all citizens of the country) and the Islamic Sharia law (applicable to Muslims).

Under Sharia law, it is a criminal offence to take part in same-sex acts, and Section 28 states that any male person who wears a woman’s attire or poses as a woman may be guilty of an offence.

Many members of JEJAKA are motivated by their own experiences of discrimination as LGBTQ+ people.

“I have experience of being a target of these policies and laws, and of course that affects you in a way where you want to see changes in those laws and policies,” Mr Rohaizad says. 

A 2017 study by academics based at multiple Southeast Asian and American universities found more than half (58.7 per cent) of 1300 respondents in Malaysia rejected gays and lesbians as neighbours. 

JEJAKA external affairs team member Nathaniel Leong says acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community in Malaysia is not foreseeable any time soon.

“Queerness, especially if you are a Muslim, is very difficult because you have the whole monolith of the Sharia court to worry about,” Mr Leong says. 

“Most of the time, the charges by the Sharia court are vague," he says.

"My friend was charged for promoting cross-dressing. It’s very unfair for these charges to be put against you."

Mr Rohaizad says the laws in Malaysia have also created funding challenges for grassroots organisations to support the LGBTQ+ community. 

“The thing about Malaysia is that we don’t have much freedom of association here, which means we don’t have much autonomy when we want to register ourselves formally as an LGBT organisation, so that makes it hard to receive any sort of local funding." 
 

A 2022 report by Human Rights Watch and Justice for Sisters found the Malaysian Government has been sponsoring and funding conversion practices. Those who identify as, or who are suspected to be, LGBTQ+ undergo a comprehensive process of counselling and correction therapy, with the objective of changing their sexual orientation to heterosexual.

The report found these conversion practices are the result of a combination of factors including a conservative government and strong religious beliefs, which leads to the country adopting an anti-LGBT stance. 

The report condemns the Malaysian Government for supporting these practices and suggests alternatives to promote the inclusion of the LGBTQ+ community.

In February, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong announced a $3.5 million fund to support LGBTQ+ civil organisations and human rights defenders in Asia and the Pacific. But there will not be an allocation for Malaysia, Mr Rohaizad says.

“The reason behind that is because Malaysia is becoming a more middle-to-high-income country; we’re still developing, but we’re not as developing as other Southeast Asian countries, which is true in the economic sense,” he says.

He and Mr Leong say external funds would help with legal proceedings and provide temporary housing for those who have been displaced due to their identity.

Says Mr Leong: “Previously we had Rumah Angkat, which was a temporary housing [service] but that was discontinued because of the lack of funds.” 

Despite the strict laws and lack of funding, the Malaysian LGBTQ+ community remains positive and proud of their identities.

Alongside his work with JEJAKA, Mr Leong is passionate about art, expressing his identity through film, theatre and drag.

“It’s one of my goals to create things by queer people for queer Malaysians,” he says.

The intersection of queer and Malaysian identities inspired him to express his emotions through art (as shown in this story's cover photo).

“My art is informed by the exploration of the pre-existing queerness within the Nusantara region and how it intersects with queer identities,” he says. “It’s like in this space, in this context, I am seen and recognised.”

Mr Leong says visibility is important in advancing the LGBTQ+ rights agenda. “Just being visible is enough work to bring up conversations about how normal being queer is."

Mr Rohaizad, on the other hand, says it is important to normalise the inclusion of the LGBTQ+ community through language.

“Because of the stigma around the term LGBT, what people often use, healthcare workers especially, they like to use other terms like 'key affected population', or 'men who have sex with men', or 'women at risk',” he says. 

“What I’ve been doing when I deal with people in health work is I use the term LGBT as much as possible, because I want them to know that just because you censor the LGBT identity, it does not mean it goes away.” 

He says the term 'chosen family' is pivotal to the work of LGBTQ+ activists in Malaysia, as it offers their community a sense of comfort and belonging. 

“I think one thing that’s very central to LGBT activism, or even being LGBT itself, is a sense of solidarity in the community.”