Coming into the light

Editor’s Note: This article is the first in a four-part series based mainly on Innovation for Change — East Asia’s newly released report that looks into the lived experiences of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex, asexual plus (LGBTQIA+) community engaged in civil society work that is not LGBTQIA+-focused. You may download the synthesis report here.

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eneath Brunei’s gleaming skyscrapers and beautiful skyline is a stark reality: Queer people forced to live in secrecy and silenced voices that otherwise long to speak for the rights of a marginalized community yearning for recognition and acceptance.

In such an environment, where Sharia law is strictly enforced and same-sex relations are criminalized, there are, understandably, no publicly operating queer rights groups.     

As such, many Bruneian queer people often find themselves completely locked out of formal LGBTQIA+ advocacy. But this has not stopped people like A, a young bisexual woman, from championing other important causes – in her case, youth empowerment. 

Like-minded queer activists in Brunei similarly gravitate toward worthwhile causes –for example, anti-sexual harassment advocacy, climate change action, and marine conservation. Marginal or otherwise, participation in these advocacies are still radical acts of resistance that, in the long run, benefit their own cause, LGBTQIA+ rights. 

“If it is not I who will start and create the positive change I want to see in my community, then who will?” she says. 

In Malaysia, where both political and religious landscapes make it similarly unsafe for the queer community to live openly and advocate for their rights, LGBTQIA+ activists are also drawn to causes that support the communities that they identify with or inspire them. 

Josibotu (not his full name), who works with rural communities on environment conservation, knows this full well. “I find joy in talking with them and listening to their struggle and watching them become agents of change for their own environment,” he says.

In much of Southeast Asia and elsewhere in Asia Pacific, queer individuals continue to face stigma, discrimination, and even criminalization. Yet, for many of them who are involved with civil society organizations (CSOs) that do not necessarily focus on LGBTQIA+ rights, they nevertheless advance other causes.

A new report, “Shimmering Lights in Shadows: Queer Activists in Non-Queer Spaces,” unveils their quiet defiance as they work, or fulfill diverse roles, in CSOs that run the gamut from supportive, rights-affirming environments for queer people to tolerant, or restrictive of LGBTQIA+ individuals’ rights.

The report, published by Innovation for Change – East Asia (I4C-EA), builds on conversations with 47 LGBTQIA+ individuals from Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore as well as Fiji. All of them have either worked or volunteered, or are currently working, in these organizations.

In these spaces, they hide their queer identities, or navigate unsafe environments with strategic ambiguity. Unfortunately, too, many of them say even their CSO environments can be guilty of perpetuating the same systemic exclusions they claim to fight, especially when they are funded or supported by the government. 

Their stories, however varied, are connected by a common thread: they are queer people doing rights work even in spaces where their own rights remain unspoken, sidelined, or outright criminalized. 

“When queer activists feel safe and empowered to openly carry out the work or live out their passions through their advocacies, they become visible doing the good that they do,” says Marissa de Guzman, I4C-EA programme specialist, in the report. 

“Visibility becomes a signal to other silenced or marginalized queer individuals and communities to bring their full selves to work or to wherever they need to be, to do as they pursue.”  

Regional snapshot

Over the past few years, the Asia-Pacific region has seen significant victories in the fight for LGBTQIA+ rights. 

These include the decriminalization of gay sex in Singapore (2022); allowing same-sex couples in Taiwan to adopt (2023); a Hong Kong court order for the government to set up an “alternative legal framework” to protect same-sex couples rights (2023) and the affirmation of their housing and inheritance rights (2024); and the legalization of same-sex marriage in Thailand last January.

Singapore repealed its colonial-era law Section 377A, which criminalizes sex between men in 2022. 

Still and all, much remains to be done in countries that continue to restrict queer people due largely to colonial-era laws, religious traditions, and sociocultural norms deeply rooted in patriarchy and heteronormativity. In the city-state, for example, some 40 organizations and initiatives that cater to the queer community still find themselves in a tightly controlled political environment. Brunei and Malaysia explicitly criminalize LGBTQIA+ people in some form.

Fiji stands out somehow. It was the first Pacific nation to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. But while queer rights are guaranteed on paper, their lived realities reveal contradictions, according to the I4C-EA report.

Such realities negate what multiple studies have shown: LGBTQIA+ inclusion, especially in the workplace, reaps great economic benefits. 

For instance, a 2024 Open for Business report, titled “The Economic Case for LGBTQ+ Inclusion in Southeast Asia,” asserts that just a 10 percent improvement in LGBTQIA+ rights – such as by enforcing anti-discrimination policies, workplace inclusion, and ensuring access to social welfare – could increase their countries’ gross domestic product per capita by $3,700. 

The same report computed the wage gap and lost productivity arising from LGBTQIA+ discrimination in the six countries covered by the report  – Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam – and found that this collectively cost them more than $32 billion a year.

‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’

Yet it cannot be denied that the challenges confronting the LGBTQIA+ people are deeply felt even in the workplace – and some CSOs championing human rights, justice, and inclusion are no exception, the I4C-EA report reveals. Queer individuals working in these organizations struggle to hide their identity and lack formal protections in the absence of antidiscrimination policies.

Government restrictions often exacerbate these conditions. In Malaysia, for example, while many human rights organizations claim that they uphold all human rights, they nonetheless steer clear of addressing SOGIESC rights openly. 

“As a result, many human rights organizations can only be tacitly accepting of queer people with an unwritten ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy. As these organisations don’t address SOGIESC issues, queer activists working with them do not always feel secure to be fully who they are,” the report says. 

A Malaysian activist quoted in the report shares how he either avoids talking about SOGIESC rights or frames these within broader human rights issues. 

“I’m empowered enough to express my ideas, especially on human rights and queer rights in general, because some of the team members are really human rights defenders. But I’m still not comfortable expressing my personal identity because we are part of a big coalition. Half of them may not be comfortable with LGBT issues,” the activist says. 

Singaporean queer activists in civil society organizations supported or funded by the government echo this sentiment. One of them recounts how nonprofit organizations, fearful about funders with political alliances, often “transfer(s) those fears onto the staff and be extra cautious in ensuring that their staff do not endorse risky positions.” 

In all four focus countries, activists say the constant pressure to navigate hostile or indifferent workplaces exacts a toll on their mental health. This is compounded by having to constantly assess risks, code-switch, and compartmentalize their identities. 

In Fiji, despite being the only one among the four counties that has laws prohibiting discrimination on account of sexual orientation, gender, and expression, queer activists avoid  direct LGBTQIA+ advocacy work to protect their family honor. Homophobia, after all, is still rife in this South Pacific Ocean country that remains traditionally patriarchal.  

Toward full queer recognition 

This lived experience of marginalization even in spaces that are supposed to be more inclusive have taught queer individuals to become empathic, resourceful, and resilient, the report says. Many of them say their CSO work has enabled them to anticipate the needs of others, facilitate sensitive conversations, and create safe spaces. 

These skills are often honed in silence and at great personal cost, but have nevertheless become essential to their civil society work.  

“Rainbow-tinted lenses empower queer people with the all-embracing capability to view, appreciate, and respect the rights of others … The differences in identities, lived realities, backgrounds, values, interests, aspirations, actually enhance the shaping of a multi-faceted approach to the multiple ways of responding to social justice issues,” the report says.

Malaysian queer individuals attest to this. Their own exposure to discrimination has instilled in them the capacity to feel for others and provide them with their needed support. “Empathizing is easy, natural, and almost instantaneous for the queer contributors,” says the report. 

Yet efforts to achieve the goal of enabling “the queer community to be fully recognized and supported, not just tolerated for parts of themselves that society chooses to see,” should not be cast aside.  

“Part of this support should cover legal instruments and protections, to have them reflected in policies and consistently implemented.”

Among others, I4C-EA recommends that CSOs adopt and enforce explicit anti-discrimination and inclusion policies. One of these is the integration of SOGIESC into safeguarding measures and individual risk assessments, particularly in environments where queer identities are criminalized or heavily stigmatized.

It also recommends that workplaces adopt non-hierarchical organizational structures and open workplace cultures so that queer staff should also be empowered to bring their full selves to work without fear of discrimination or reprisal.

Because many queer activists often operate in high-stress environments, institutions must also provide concrete mental health resources, including trauma-informed support services, wellness programs, and rest spaces. 

“The lived experiences and realities of the queer activists in the four focus countries reveal that unspoken acceptance, in the end, has never been enough. Not being openly oppressed is also not to be equated with tolerance. And any tacit, quiet, silent, assumed, or implied word or act of tolerance is not tantamount to genuine acceptance or inclusion,” the report concludes. ◉

Krixia Subingsubing is a Filipino journalist based in Manila, who writes stories on human rights, science, and local politics.