The other day, my niece was shaking her head over a piece about re-educating sissy boys by sending them to special camps. I groaned, assuming she was talking about some right-wing county, or a country ruled by religious bigots who can’t bear the thought that boys may be growing up a little different to their ideal macho man, that is, not growing up to be the kinda man who’s going to march around mountains with a hunting gun, or some other so-called masculine activity.

But no. Jak just pointed out to me that this was Malaysia, or to be more specific, the state education department in Terengganu. Yeah, I know, sounds pretty ridiculous, doesn’t it. It gets worse. Here’s what the Education Dept Director said, according to The Star newspaper:

…. the boot camp was designed to prevent the boys from developing feminine traits which could hamper their future. “The boys involved were selected from most schools in the state. They were carefully vetted before a final selection was made,” he told The Star. He added that if such tendencies were not curbed at a young age, it would lead to bigger problems for them in the future. He added among factors that encouraged effeminacy were parents’ action in dressing boys in girls clothing as they had really wanted a girl or if the boys were surrounded by female siblings.

Oh, right, he would have to blame us woman for this perceived horror.  Yep, it’s always our fault. Have too many girls in the family and this is what happens. My husband and his brother (and their far more numerous sisters) might have something to say about that!!

And then there is this:
Department director Razali Daud explained that the four-day camp in Besut admitted boys identified by their schools for displaying “feminine qualities”. He said the 66 schoolboys were showing behaviours that were not “usually displayed by a normal male of their age.” 

Oh? Who sez what it normal here anyway, eh?


“We understand that some people end up as mak nyah (transvestites) or homosexuals, but we will do our best to limit the number,” Razali was quoted as saying.

Actually, as any well-educated person knows, the true horror is telling kids who are outliers in the spectrum of what is possible that there’s something the matter with them. True horror is blaming these kids, when the fault lies with the faulty perception of prejudiced people who create senseless labels based on their meaningless assumptions.

A boy has long eyelashes and curly hair? He must be a sissy. He prefers to read rather than play a rough game of football? He’s a sissy. He paints or plays music or sings a beautiful soprano or is very shy or he stutters — he’s got to be a sissy. He’s skinny and under-developed for his age? He’s a sissy.

That’s the first crime against the child concerned. The second crime occurs when authorities decide that being a “sissy” — whatever that stupid categorisation involves — means that the boy will grow up to be somehow “bad”. And bad encompasses being gay. That’s right, against all medical and scientific evidence to the contrary, sissy = gay and … get this, also against all evidence to the contrary, you can talk ’em out of being gay (or trans or anything else you don’t agree with) if you catch ’em young enough. Sheesh. Don’t even get me started on the idea that being born GLBT is a sin.

I’m happy to say that there has been outrage in Malaysia about this, including statements from federal minister Senator Datuk Seri Shahrizat and the federal Women, Family and Community Development Ministry.
“We believe that such ‘boot camps’ must be abolished on the basis that they are harmful and do not serve the best interest of the child, and are therefore in clear violation of the Child Act 2001,” said Shahrizat in a statement today. “Every child is entitled to protection and assistance in all circumstances without regard to distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, social origin or physical, mental or emotional disabilities or any other status.”

The Terengganu Education Director has been back-peddling like mad, hopefully because someone has pointed out to him that what he said was not only pathetically stupid, but also woefully incorrect and viciously cruel.

What can we do to make sure this kind of silliness doesn’t happen again? Well you can sign the petition here.

Answer: when you have a city person forgetting that chickens aren’t a machine.

I’m serious. There has been a hilarious episode in Malaysia at the moment, where a complaint to the Consumers’ Asscociation of Penang (CAP) led to a kerfuffle where eggs were being tested to see if they were…wait for it…”fake” eggs from China. They looked like eggs – with a shell, yolk and white, but were not, according to a spokesman from CAP, real. Someone, they said, was faking eggs in (according to me) what must surely have been an incredibly complicated and expensive process costing ten times the price of a real egg.

Right.

CAP said they were weird shapes and odd colours…and had no taste. Excuse me while I roll around the floor laughing.

I was brought up on a poultry farm. Hens are not machines. They are living, breathing creatures. They lay brown eggs, white eggs, odd shaped eggs, huge double-yoked eggs, eggs with blood spots, pale yolked eggs, dark yolked eggs (according to what they have been eating), eggs with ridges on the shells, and so on. Such eggs are usually sold to places like biscuit factories, cheaply.

Yep, we’ve done it again.

Let’s get one thing straight (no pun intended there, my friends) — put in the simplest of general terms, people are born with their sexuality/gender identity. It’s NOT a choice. If you believe it is a sin to practice what nature is telling you is natural, then by all means, don’t YOU indulge. THAT is your choice.

But to treat other people with disdain and hatred because of the way they were born is the most disgusting of all behaviours. Even worse is to throw them in jail. If you think their behaviour is sinful, then take heart with the idea that they will be punished by God. If they are not hurting anyone else by being what they were made to be, what the hell business is it of yours? Let God deal with it!

When I first came to Malaysia, I was impressed by the tolerance with which trans people were regarded in a pretty conservative society. Unfortunately, there are people who think tolerance is horrendous, acceptance even worse, and as for not bothering to notice because we are all human — well that’s totally beyond their ability to comprehend.

So what piece of stupidity is Malaysia up to now? Read this, extract below.

Malaysians who tune in to popular stations hear edited versions of “Born This Way” that use indecipherable garble to replace the lyrics: “No matter gay, straight or bi, lesbian, transgendered life, I’m on the right track, baby.”

AMP Radio Networks, Malaysia’s top private radio operator, said the precaution was due to government restrictions against songs that might violate “good taste or decency or (are) offensive to public feeling.”

“The particular lyrics in ‘Born This Way’ may be considered as offensive when viewed against Malaysia’s social and religious observances,”  the company said in a statement to The Associated Press. “The issue of being gay, lesbian or (bisexual) is still considered as a ‘taboo’ by general Malaysians.”

I guess that the radio stations are running scared because they think they’ll be fined. So what do they do? Blur the words of a Lady Gaga song that is preaching tolerance and acceptance. Because in Malaysian we officially don’t believe in those things apparently.

Me? Well I think that censorship of this kind “violates good taste or decency” and such tasteless censorship is deeply offensive to my feelings as a member of the public who has good LBGT friends.

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I thought the Malaysian censors had grown up a bit, and got over this kind of puerile childish emphasis on the HORROR of actually – omigod – seeing human genitals. Well, not real ones. Stone ones. Oops, no, not stone ones. Just, um, photographs of stone ones.

(I am SCARRED for life! I actually SAW a replica of David, same size as the real statue, quite, quite naked, when I was an innocent child of 14 or so. I have never got over the trauma! *Hits back of wrist to forehead at the memory*)

Seems the censors have the mental capacity of the average chickpea. K.H.Lee send this to me – apparently this is how the December issue of National Geographic arrived to Malaysian subscribers. No, David is not wearing a lap-lap. That’s just the censor’s ink.

Malaysians, please do not travel to Europe. You will never survive the trauma of seeing all those naked statues in public places – you know, like on fountains, or on parliament and government building facades. You are warned!

Oh, and someone really ought to mention to the censorship people that the more you cover something up, the more curious folk are about what you have to hide. How many kids, leafing though Mum and Dad’s National Geographic, are now going to go to the computer to see what was really hidden under there?
BEWARE. READ NO FURTHER UNLESS YOU ARE OVER 65 AND HALF-BLIND. DO NOT SAY WOU WEREN’T WARNED. YOU WILL NEVER BE THE SAME AGAIN.

And here, for those of you who have a high threshold for life-changing trauma, who really think they can stand the horror of seeing part of the human body as portrayed by the greatest of sculptors, or if you subscribe to National Geographic in Malaysia, is what you were missing…

Malaysia is many things. A multi-racial country of modern highways and skyscrapers and modern education, where there are more women in university than men, where our top banker is a woman, where women are vice-chancellors (presidents) of universities.  I go to the local government clinic once every 3 months and see whoever the doctor is on duty – and in all the years I’ve been going there, the different doctors have always been  young Muslim women, competent, friendly and thorough.

You’d think paedophilia would not be legal in a country like that. And it isn’t…for non-Muslims. For Muslims, however, it’s fine, as long as the child’s parents and some other man or other, from some religious department or other, says it’s ok. (I wonder what training he has in recognising the physical and emotional well-being of a child. None, I’d say, judging from this article.)

Let’s get one thing straight. A 23-year-old male school teacher* is an adult. A man.
A 14-year-old school girl is not an adult. She’s not a woman, even if she has started her menses. She’s still a child. She looks up to adults. Her religion and her culture tell her to obey her elders, especially her parents. She is gullible and vulnerable.

A 23 year old man who marries her – an educated man, not some illiterate fellow whose society is still steeped in the 19th century idea that children should be working at 12 and married at 14 – is purely and simply a paedophile.

And in this country, he can legally use a child for his sexual gratification. And parents who promote such a match are beyond comprehension.

Shame.

From the paper:.

From one of our nation’s newspapers… (Thanks to Smathi for the link!)

 Thursday November 11, 2010

Make voluntary activities compulsory for students: Rosmah

By P. ARUNA

KUALA LUMPUR: Institutes of higher learning should make it compulsory for students to get involved in voluntary activities, said Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor.
“The nation needs citizens and future leaders who are not only intellectually capable and civic-minded but also those who care for their fellow citizens, especially the less fortunate,” she said.
The Prime Minister’s wife stressed that the spirit of social work and volunteerism, especially among students, was important in the creation of a harmonious society….

Etc, etc….