Fani*, 35, upon hearing the sound of a notification from her cellphone, expectantly rushed to the dresser on which the device rested. Alas, when she unlocked the phone, Fani’s face fell. “Any good news?” asked her friend Febby*. Fani shook her head and let out a big sigh.
Since President Joko Widodo announced that the COVID-19 pandemic had arrived in Indonesia on March 17, the economic cycle on which Fani and her fellow transgenders relied stopped abruptly. Their community in Surabaya, the capital of the province of East Java, has been hit hard by the coronavirus. Many of them were fired from their formal workplaces. Fani, for example, lost her job as the shopkeeper of a cake store.
Then their “hotspot” closed, leaving them with no place to hang out and meet their customers. Customers were rarer than hens’ teeth. Many of them have stopped coming because they, too, felt the pinch.
Fani tried hard to come up with a strategy. Since the hotspot was closed, she switched to using online media to contact customers and offer her services, but to no avail.
The transgender community’s woes started even before the pandemic. In 2014, Tri Rismaharini, the mayor of Surabaya, launched a program called Surabaya Bersih Prostitusi or Prostitution-free Surabaya. The program aimed to wipe out prostitution in Indonesia’s second-largest city.
The program included closing four areas for transgenders. Three areas—Waru Roundabout, Irian Barat Street, and Margomulyo Street—have been closed since 2014. The fourth area, Kembang Kuning, located above a Chinese cemetery, was closed in April 2020. Kembang Kuning was the hotspot frequented by Fani and her friends.
One of the factors behind the closure of Kembang Kuning was the curfew – 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. – that the city government imposed during the pandemic. The only road to reach the hotspot is guarded by the police.
Taking risks
The new rules left the transgender community in Surabaya at a loss. Eventually, the sex workers began to offer their services via online chat applications and turned their flats or houses into hotspots.
However, even when Fani and her friends use a private room as a hotspot, they face other problems. Their neighbors often harass them, or they may be raided by the police.
Finding clients through online applications is a gamble. “If you’re lucky, you get to bring home some money. But if you already booked and paid for a hotel room and no customer comes, what can you do but bite your fingernails?” Fani said.
Febby, 38, said that she has no other choice but to take such risks in order to feed her children. “The training program from the government, which consists mainly of hairdressing courses, doesn’t really help,” she said. “There is also no financial assistance.”
The pandemic has also left street performers jobless. Febby belongs to a group called Trio Klarap. She used to sing at weddings and had a full calendar of gigs. However, as the lockdown dragged on, many of the events were canceled, while others were indefinitely postponed.
According to Febby, many of her transgender friends who work as buskers have had to sell their belongings to survive. “From jewelry, televisions, mattresses, everything is sold in order to buy a meal. And now they only eat once a day, usually just instant noodles,” she said.
Few housing options
In a room with a dirt floor, Merry*, 50, plays with a little boy. She is a new resident in the boarding house where the transwomen in Sememi, a sub-district of Surabaya, live. Merry moved there after she was forcibly evicted in August from her previous home, in which she had lived for 30 years.
In the 1990s, Merry moved to Surabaya from the city of Lamongan in East Java because she thought that the former would be a safe space for transwomen. Back then, Surabaya was the prime destination for transwomen sex workers interested in offering their services.
Merry left that line of work five years ago. Today, she sells cheap snacks and other foodstuffs in Surabaya. But since she does not earn much, she is forced to live in a rickety house because the rates are cheap: 30 thousand rupiahs (about US$2) per month.
“The boarding house is the cheapest and most affordable place to live for me and my friends,” said Merry. “Many of my friends work as scavengers or buskers.” She chooses to live in the less-than-ideal house because fellow transwomen live there and she feels safe.
Hopes and dreams
Discrimination is part of the lives of many transgenders in Surabaya.
“We are laughed at and called our real names, which we do not use anymore. Our identity is new,” Febby said. She referred to these names as “dead names,” because these belong to their past and their mere mention brings back bitter memories.
To avoid discrimination against transgenders, Perwakos is working on a program that will allow members like Febby to apply for new identity cards without going back to their home villages. Perwakos wants to avoid exposing its members to the abuse they had experienced at the hands of their own families.
“It’s difficult for our people to get an identity, because we dread that going back home to look for legal documents might risk rejection. But we want to be treated as proper and equal citizens, equivalent to the others without discrimination.”
Febby, Fani, and their fellow transgender sex workers all share the same dream: to stop plying their trade and to be accepted like human beings in society. ●
* Pseudonyms were used to protect the identities of the interviewees.
Reno Surya is a freelance journalist based in Surabaya, Indonesia. His stories have appeared in various publications including VICE Indonesia, Warning Magazine, Jawapos, and New Naratif. He writes about culture, human rights, and urban issues.