Thilaga Sulathireh on Increasing Support for LGBTQ Community in Malaysia

Search

Loading...

News

Latest News

Mar 30, 2017
by Andrea Abellan
Thilaga Sulathireh on Increasing Support for LGBTQ Community in Malaysia

Salzburg Global Fellow and co-founder of the organization Justice for Sisters, speaks to star2.com on helping marginalized communities in Malaysia

Thilaga Sulathireh speaking at the Salzburg Global LGBT Forum held in Thailand in 2016

Salzburg Global Fellow and Justice for Sisters co-founder Thilaga Sulathireh has suggested more people in Malaysia are speaking out against the discrimination members of the LGBTQ community face.

Sulathireh, 30, speaking to star2.com, said a lot of cisgender and heterosexual people were now speaking out against discrimination, which highlighted a “positive step in our activism.”

She said: “There are limitations in Malaysia when it comes to talking about gender identity. Yet, people want to talk about it now. This is really encouraging and something we cherish.

“Take the recent murder of Sameera (in Kuantan recently) as an example… there was a huge public outcry not just within the trans community but from the general public.”

Sulathireh’s activism began at a very young age. As a teenager, she participated as a volunteer at the Malaysian Aids Council (MAC) where she worked with HIV support groups, an experience that made her aware of gender-related concerns. 

In 2010, she founded the organization Justice for Sisters. Through this association, Sulathireh and her team seek to provide a bigger visibility of the transgender community, pursuing social integration.

She has taken part in several Salzburg Global events. In 2013 she participated in the inaugural session of the LGBT Forum, Human Rights: New Challenges, Next Steps. This first meeting resulted in The Salzburg Statement of the Global LGBT Forum, a document summarizing the thoughts shared by the 60 participants on how to move forward on LGBT rights. 

Sulathireh also took part in the fourth session of the Salzburg Global LGBT Forum convened in Thailand in 2016. The latter aimed to boost the dialogue on LGBT rights in Asia and touched on different topics such as family-related issues and new forms of storytelling with a particular focus on transgender-Asian perspectives.

Sexual relations between people of the same sex are still banned in Malaysia. Certain acts such as wearing clothes from the “opposite” sex are also criminalized. These type of laws mean members of the LGTBQ community remain vulnerable and unprotected against violence and discrimination.

Sulathireh told star2.com raising public awareness on issues faced by the LGBTQ community is an integral part of her work. 

Speaking to the lifestyle portal, she said, “Trans people face a series of discrimination at work… right from the interview process to their experiences at the workplace. There are not many employment opportunities for them which forces them to do sex work, and this leads to them being discriminated yet again.

“With more public awareness, hopefully there will be more job opportunities for them.”

To read Sulathireh’s interview in full, please click here