My Life, I Guess (A Memoir)

Chapter 1

I was what some people would call the "surprise" child. 

Before I was born on April 1996, my parents had only daughters. First came Nina, then Elly, then Nadia. A part of their childhood was spent in Germany, since my father had to move there for work. This was one of the things that I envied about them, and it always made me wonder how different my life and my family would have been if they had just stayed permanently there, and what it would've been like if I was born there.

Something that I would find out later on in my childhood was that I actually had a fourth older sister, named Liana. Unfortunately, as a baby she had a rare disorder that stunted her aging, and she died when she was barely two years old. As a kid, hearing this made me very sad, that I lost the chance to have another sister. 

Now, I still have the same sadness, but what's more is that I also often wonder what she would've been like. Would she have been the one sister who would understand me? Who I could confide in?

After she died, it took several years for my parents to try again. They desperately wanted a boy. And then, by sheer luck, my mom had me in her 40s. How exciting, they finally had the son that they always hoped for. The one who will continue the family legacy and live up to my father's name.

I wish they could realize that my mother actually birthed yet another daughter that day.

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My family told me that my birth name is inspired by the Arabic word for "victory". It's pretty laughable to think about the irony of it, considering I've never been victorious at anything in life. I've never won anything, I don't particularly have any useful skillsets. But I think they named me that because they had high hopes for me. I was the only son, of course, so I was practically expected to rise to greatness from the day I was born.

I was born into an extremely large Muslim family. My father is one of eight children, and I have more cousins than I can count. It's the kind of big family where you have relatives that you don't even know. 

For the sake of keeping them away from this story, let's call them the B family.

Before I came along, my grandfather owned a nice big house in Jakarta that, when he passed, was handed down to my father. It was decided that my father would be in charge of the family inheritance. Mind you, the Muslim rules when it comes to inheritance are extremely strict, so most of the squabbles within the B family are about that. Most of the time, my father was--and still is--the person in the family that certain relatives come to for financial reasons. He has a heart of gold, so he's very generous when it comes to giving and/or spending his money, which we'll get into some more a little later.

When I was a kid, the B family still had a sense of unity, and the people in it were not so brainwashed with extreme religiousness just yet. The B family was always religious, but not to the extent that they are right now. Because of that, my childhood was quite fun.

I was such a gay little shit back then. Extremely feminine, obsessed with any girly thing I was allowed to consume. I absorbed everything my sisters were into, primarily in terms of music. I grew up with so many Top 40 songs of the 90s and early 2000s. I remember distinctly trying to act out the music video for Jessica Simpson's "irresistible" at the airport, strutting on those moving walkways like I was a pop star and supermodel combined. I was also crushing on boys for as long as I can remember, particularly boyband members. 

The band Westlife was extremely popular here in Indonesia back in those days, and each of my sisters had their own crush, including me. My crush was Shane Filan. There was a poster of him that was hung in the guest room--and no, I don't know why it was there of all places--that I consistently made out with. It's so embarrassing to admit now, but he was basically my first celebrity crush, and I don't even think he's that attractive now. 

I also had a cousin named Ria who, in secret from the rest of my family, let me indulge in some of the other girly things I loved, mainly Barbie. She had a collection of dolls that she sometimes let me play with, and also bought the animated Barbie movies for us to watch together--Princess and the Pauper was my favorite and remains the undefeated champion of Barbie movies in my honest opinion.

And of course, she was the one to get me online for the very first time. She let me uncover the magic that was Barbie.com, as well the websites for Bratz, MyScene and Polly Pocket. There were so many addictive flash games on those things, I could barely handle it. It was girly heaven, and it was why I always looked forward to my cousin Ria visiting. The ear-shattering dial-up modem sound believe it or not was my favorite sound in the world at that time, because I just couldn't wait to be online.

So with all of that being said, clearly I was a very flamboyantly queer kid, right?

Nope.

The thing about Indonesians is that, for example: a little boy could be as effeminate as humanly possible and there still wouldn't be any assumptions that he was queer. Queerness was something taboo, untouchable and unspeakable back then, and yet... Somehow, at the same time, it was still sort of accepted in Indonesian pop culture?

Let me explain. Back in those times, there was a celebrity by the name of Dorce Gamalama. Dorce was a drag queen--and later, a trans woman--who was still quite popular and liked by the public. She was essentially the Indonesian equivalent of Oprah, complete with her very own talk show and everything. Somehow, she was able to achieve success, despite there being plenty of backlash towards her even existing.

And that was the very strange dichotomy of Indonesian pop culture back then. Queer people could exist and be accepted by the public, but only some of them. There was still a sense condemnation of queerness, though not as violent and dangerous as it is now.

I was taught to fear drag queens as a child, taught that they were predators who would come and still children if you got too close. And for the most part, it worked. In Indonesian streets, there were usually beggars who would try to get some money from cars when they stopped at a red light. Many of them at the time were drag queens, and anytime we passed by one of them I always hid and looked away.

However, there was also a popular music video at the time that prominently featured a drag queen. I think it was even supposed to paint her in a sympathetic light. The song was called "Mengapa Aku Begini?", which literally translates as "Why Am I Like This?" I was enthralled by this video, because the drag queen was the star. She was shown doing her makeup and performing for an audience of stunned men. While I was taught to fear them, I was able to also find them beautiful.

It's funny that now, drag is one of my favorite artforms in the world. I haven't gotten the chance to do it yet, but I would love to more than anything.

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As the LGBTQ+ community became more represented in Western popular culture, it is my belief that Indonesia perceives it as a threat, a virus from the West that could infect young Indonesian minds and must be kept out. There is an increase in backlash against queerness now more than ever before. The country exponentially became more and more religious, as did my family. Drag queens were no longer allowed to be in public. Same-sex relations is a punishable offense that can lead to jailtime if discovered. There can't even be an openly queer community that's fighting for our rights, because everyone is too afraid. 

The thing about Islam is that, because it's so widespread all over the world, there are many different iterations of it. In the West, for example, Islam is more accepting, more of a personal belief. Hell, there are even plenty of queer Muslims too. I may consider that an oxymoron, due to my upbringing, but that's just not what Islam is like in Western countries.

Here, it is organized religion almost at its worst. I say almost because it's thankfully not as life-threatening for queer people as what it's like in some Middle Eastern countries. There are still certain parts of Jakarta, the capital city, where someone can be relatively open with their queerness. And in Bali, the most famous tourist hotspot in the country, there are plenty of queers considering the city is mostly foreigners on vacation. But I have personally never been to those parts of the country, and therefore I've never had an experience where I could be freely open.

I'm at a point in my life where I don't think I ever could. There is no hope of this country ever improving in that regard. The more the rest of the world progresses, Indonesia regresses. Every day I'm more and more convinced that I need to get the fuck out of here in order to truly live my life.