Rights-Asia: Transgenders Assert Identity At AIDS Meet

IPSNews.net – By Lynette Lee Corporal

Bali (TerraViva/IPS) – “There has been so much confusion going around transgenders. We are not MSMs [men who have sex with men] and don’t lump us under the transvestite [category either] because we have different needs,” declared Kartini Slemeh at the 9th International Conference on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP) here.

A transgender, Slemeh heads a transgender support programme in Malaysia that works under the Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP) – an informal alliance of sex workers and organisations active in 40 countries.