Between Worlds: Jilbab and Transgender in Indonesia
February 1st, 2011
Alicia
http://muslimahmediawatch.org/2011/02/between-worlds-jilbab-and-transgender-in-indonesia/It is a scene that wouldn't be unfamiliar in France or Belgium: a woman's hijab is snatched away by strangers on the street from her head despite her protest. She is told she shouldn't wear it, or rather, she has no right to because her wearing it mocks other women and femininity itself. But it is not an episode of Islamophobic rage that is recounted by Shuniyya Rumaha Haiibalah, but an incident in her native Indonesia that would later become the title of her best-selling memoir, Jangan lepas jilbabku! (Please do not remove my jilbab!)
Haiibalah is Muslim and transgender. The hostile reactions from other women and men towards her decision to wear the jilbab (hijab) in public was based on the belief of the irreconcilability of being waria* (transgender) and expressing religiosity in the gender of choice.
