AP Exclusive: Obama's transgender ex-nanny outcast
By NINIEK KARMINI
Associated Press
Posted: Monday, Mar. 05, 2012
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/03/05/3070740/ap-exclusive-obamas-transgender.html (http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/03/05/3070740/ap-exclusive-obamas-transgender.html)
JAKARTA, Indonesia Once, long ago, Evie looked after "Barry" Obama, the kid who would grow up to become the world's most powerful man. Now, his transgender former nanny has given up her tight, flowery dresses, her brocade vest and her bras, and is living in fear on Indonesia's streets.
Evie, who was born a man but believes she is really a woman, has endured a lifetime of taunts and beatings because of her identity. She describes how soldiers once shaved her long, black hair to the scalp and smashed out glowing cigarettes onto her hands and arms.
...And the country's highest Islamic body has decreed that they are required to live as they were born because each gender has obligations to fulfill, such as reproduction.
"They must learn to accept their nature," says Ichwan Syam, a prominent Muslim cleric at the influential Indonesian Ulema Council. "If they are not willing to cure themselves medically and religiously" they have "to accept their fate to be ridiculed and harassed."
Says it all really.
How sad. On so many levels. Sometimes it makes you ashamed to be part of the same species as some people.
http://news.yahoo.com/ap-exclusive-obamas-transgender-ex-nanny-outcast-070907242.html (http://news.yahoo.com/ap-exclusive-obamas-transgender-ex-nanny-outcast-070907242.html)
AP Exclusive: Obama's transgender ex-nanny outcast
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Once, long ago, Evie looked after "Barry" Obama, the kid who would grow up to become the world's most powerful man. Now, his transgender former nanny has given up her tight, flowery dresses, her brocade vest and her bras, and is living in fear on Indonesia's streets.
Evie, who was born a man but believes she is really a woman, has endured a lifetime of taunts and beatings because of her identity. She describes how soldiers once shaved her long, black hair to the scalp and smashed out glowing cigarettes onto her hands and arms.
The turning point came when she found a transgender friend's bloated body floating in a backed-up sewage canal two decades ago. She grabbed all her girlie clothes in her arms and stuffed them into two big boxes. Half-used lipstick, powder, eye makeup — she gave them all away.
Didn't see this one coming
Obama's transgender ex-nanny 'proud' (1:40)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obamas-transgender-ex-nanny-proud-140/2012/03/05/gIQAH8ABtR_video.html (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obamas-transgender-ex-nanny-proud-140/2012/03/05/gIQAH8ABtR_video.html)
Mar. 5, 2012 - Once, long ago, Evie looked after "Barry" Obama, the kid who would grow up to become the world's most powerful man. Now, his transgender former nanny is living in fear on Indonesia's streets. (The Associated Press)
Obama's former transgender Indonesian nanny overwhelmed by sudden celebrity, job offer
By Associated Press, Published: March 8
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/obamas-former-transgender-indonesian-nanny-overwhelmed-by-sudden-celebrity-job-offer/2012/03/08/gIQAjlLiyR_story.html (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/obamas-former-transgender-indonesian-nanny-overwhelmed-by-sudden-celebrity-job-offer/2012/03/08/gIQAjlLiyR_story.html)
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Barack Obama's former nanny, Evie, is overwhelmed by her jolt from transgender slum-dweller to local celebrity. TV crews troop in and out of her tiny concrete hovel. Estranged relatives finally want to meet. She even has a promising job offer.
Evie, who was born male but considers herself a woman, decided after enduring years of abuse and ridicule she'd be better off trying to just fit in. She stopped cross-dressing and has since eked out a living hand-washing clothes.
But since being the subject of a recent article by The Associated Press about the struggles of transgender people in this predominantly Muslim nation, the 66-year-old has been showered with attention. It's mostly because of her long-ago connection to the now-U.S. president — though she hopes it might generate more openness on gender issues.
Obama's transgender nanny remembers 'little Barry'
AFP
Sunday, Mar 11, 2012
http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/World/Story/A1Story20120311-332808.html (http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/World/Story/A1Story20120311-332808.html)
JAKARTA - A transgender Indonesian man who shot to fame after it emerged he had worked as Barack Obama's nanny in the late 1960s wants nothing from "little Barry" but to meet him again some day.
TV crews and reporters have descended on the tiny concrete shack in an east Jakarta slum, where Turdi, 66, now makes a meagre living from hand-washing his neighbours' clothes.
"I am a big nobody, merely the help, so I expect nothing from Barry. But I certainly wish to see him again. Nothing more," he told AFP at his home, which sits by a foul-smelling sewage canal.