AsiaMedia.ucla.edu – By Anton Muhajir
Kuta – Yustine (not her real name) says she feels more comfortable in the glittering Seminyak area near Kuta in Bali than in her hometown in Java.
A member of Bali’s gay and transvestite community, she has been working as a singer and hairstylist on the island for the past two years.
“I came from Banyuwangi, East Java, a place where I could not live in a peaceful way,” she said at a recent group discussion on the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community here in Seminyak.
At home, her family and friends refused to accept that she was a transvestite, regarding her as a “mistake” and the “loser” of the family.