This book explores the fluid, mutable and contingent ways in which transgender men in Malaysia construct their subjectivities. Against the dearth of academic resources on Malaysian trans men, this ground-breaking monograph is rooted in the lived experiences of Malaysian trans men whose vicissitudes have mostly been hidden, silenced and overlooked. Comprising diverse age groups, ethnicities, socio-economic status, educational backgrounds and religious persuasions, these trans men reveal how they navigate life in a country with secular and religious laws that criminalise their embodiments, and the strategies they deploy to achieve self-determination and self-actualisation despite being perceived as aberrant and sinful. This book demonstrates how negotiations with constitutive elements such as gender identity, social interaction, citizenship, legality, bodily struggle, medical transitioning and personal spiritual validation condition the becomings of Malaysian trans men.

An introduction to Catholic theological ethics through the lens of its historical development from the beginning of the church until today.

The rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons (LGBT) are strongly contested by certain faith communities, and this confrontation has become increasingly pronounced following the adjudication of a number of legal cases. As the strident arguments of both sides enter a heated political arena, it brings forward the deeply contested question of whether there is any possibility of both communities' contested positions being reconciled under the same law. This volume assembles impactful voices from the faith, LGBT advocacy, legal, and academic communities - from the Human Rights Campaign and ACLU to the National Association of Evangelicals and Catholic and LDS churches. The contributors offer a 360-degree view of culture-war conflicts around faith and sexuality - from Obergefell to Masterpiece Cakeshop - and explore whether communities with such profound differences in belief are able to reach mutually acceptable solutions in order to both live with integrity.

What does it mean to become religiously queer or queerly religious in one's everyday life? What narratives of becoming 'person' emerge from these lived realities? Sharon A. Bong addresses these questions by exploring the personal journeys of several GLBTIQ (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Queer) persons negotiating the tensions between living out their sexuality and religiosity in the context of Malaysia and Singapore. By sharing their stories, Bong presents a broad spectrum of queer strategies emerging from participants' narratives of 'becoming', which encompass becoming Asian, becoming postcolonial, becoming sexually religious and religiously sexual, and becoming 'persons'. These strategies are used in the book as counterpoints to nationhood narratives of becoming Asian or postcolonial, which are still mired in religious-sponsored and colonial-inherited sexual regulations. Finally, Bong shows how the insistence of identifying as both queer and religious is critical in challenging the conservative social-political milieu surrounding issues of gender diversity and inclusion within these south-east Asian states.

This book focuses on education and power in Southeast Asia and analyzes the ways in which education has been instrumentalized by state, non-state, and private actors across this diverse region. The book looks at how countries in Southeast Asia respond to the endogenous and exogenous influences in shaping their education systems. Chapters observe and study the interplay between education and power in Southeast Asia, which offers varying political, social, cultural, religious, and economic diversities. The political systems in Southeast Asia range from near consolidated democracy in Indonesia to illiberal democracy in Singapore and Thailand to the communist regime in Laos to absolute monarchy in Brunei. Structured in three parts, (i) centralization and decentralization, (ii) privatization and marketization, and (iii) equity and justice, these themes are discussed in single-country and/or multi-country studies in the Southeast Asian region. Bringing together scholars from and focused on Southeast Asia, this book fills a gap in the literature on education in Southeast Asia.

Essential reading for scholars of gender and sexuality and anyone interested in Asia.

Representing an often overlooked population, this book explores the experiences of LGBTQ+ youth in Asian countries. Contributors focus on LGBTQ+ youth’s school life experiences, including bullying and violence, a pervasive and serious problem. This book aims to inform psychologists, mental health providers, and school professionals about the needs of LGBTQ+ youth from eight different Asian countries. Individual chapters present unique aspects of LGBTQ+ youth experiences in school contexts from different cultural perspectives. In addition, the intersectionality of LGBTQ+ and other minorities (including ethnicity, religion, and social class) highlights multiple sources of oppression or discrimination that can create additional pressures and stress for youth. The concepts of inter-minority conflict and inter-minority empathy are introduced to understand minority issues from new perspectives. This is a valuable reference for psychologists, social workers, counselors, nurses, mental health professionals, and students, whether preparing for general practice, treating LGBTQ+ clients, or supporting LGBTQ+ youth in schools around the world.

The third in a landmark five volume study of transgender realities, with a focus on crossdressing, this fascinating volume offers a tour through history and around the world. Within these pages are found the most famous crossdressers of history and information as to what it means to be a transgender person in the various countries of the world today.

As a broad category of identity, “transgender” has given life to a vibrant field of academic research since the 1990s. Yet the Western origins of the field have tended to limit its cross-cultural scope. Howard Chiang proposes a new paradigm for doing transgender history in which geopolitics assumes central importance. Defined as the antidote to transphobia, transtopia challenges a minoritarian view of transgender experience and makes room for the variability of transness on a historical continuum. Against the backdrop of the Sinophone Pacific, Chiang argues that the concept of transgender identity must be rethought beyond a purely Western frame. At the same time, he challenges China-centrism in the study of East Asian gender and sexual configurations. Chiang brings Sinophone studies to bear on trans theory to deconstruct the ways in which sexual normativity and Chinese imperialism have been produced through one another. Grounded in an eclectic range of sources—from the archives of sexology to press reports of intersexuality, films about castration, and records of social activism—this book reorients anti-transphobic inquiry at the crossroads of area studies, medical humanities, and queer theory. Timely and provocative, Transtopia in the Sinophone Pacific highlights the urgency of interdisciplinary knowledge in debates over the promise and future of human diversity.

SUARAM’s Annual Human Rights Report on Malaysia is widely recognized as the most objective, comprehensive and dependable source of information on the state of human rights in Malaysia. It documents the human rights violations as well as the struggles of human rights defenders that take place in Malaysia during the year. As a beleaguered government tried to deflect international criticisms of the 1MDB scandal throughout 2016, human rights violations have continued. Detention without trial remained an area of concern while police shootings saw an alarming increase. Freedom of expression was seriously constrained while the freedom of assembly has been usurped by neo-fascist groups with state connivance. The freedom of movement of some Malaysians has been taken away on federal and state government orders while the freedom of religion was under threat by a private member’s bill on hudud in parliament. Meanwhile, free and fair elections are seriously threatened by an on-going re-delineation exercise that reeks of gerrymandering and malapportionment. The LGBTIQ community remain under siege and harassment by state religious authorities, the indigenous peoples still suffer infringement of their native customary lands by state-sanctioned loggers while refugees and asylum seekers still live under threat of harassment by enforcement agencies.