Breaking Silence

We have always existed. Long before laws tried to criminalize our bodies. Long before systems decided whose identity counts. Long before anyone told us we should stay invisible. Our lives have always been here, unfolding in palaces, alleyways and kampungs, in small rented flats and shared community shelters, in laughter and quiet resistance. No law, no policy, no act of repression can erase us.

In Malaysia, we build our lives in the quiet margins - because the center won’t hold space for us. We wake up each day with a choice: to remain silent, or to live anyway. And we live. Not because we are permitted to, but because we must. Because there is no other option but to keep breathing, keep building, keep loving.

And yet, to speak our truth aloud is to confront the dangerous tightrope between hope and survival. There is no public protection. No assurance that truth-telling won’t cost us safety, income, or dignity. But still - we speak. Because our silence has never protected us. Because our truths deserve to echo beyond whispers.

The fight for LGBTQ+ recognition in Malaysia, especially for trans and queer communities, is older than we remember - and richer than is often told. Before colonizers arrived on our shores, our ancestors held space for gender diversity and fluidity. Michael Peletz in his book Gender Pluralism in South East Asia documents the existence of “Sida Sida”, who resided in the royal courts and were entrusted with the sacred duties and ceremonial power. 

In the same book, the “Manang Bali basir, and balian” - people assigned male at birth - embodied female identities and lived as ritual specialists, shamans and healers. These identities reflected expansive understandings of gender we would now call non-binary or transfeminine. 

But with colonial rule came criminal codes. With post-independence Islamisation came layers of moral governance. These erased our histories and replaced them with punishment.

Today, that punishment is codified. Section 377A, a British colonial law, still criminalizes same-sex intimacy. State-level Sharia laws further entrench the targeting of our identities - especially if we are Malay and Muslim. These laws are not symbolic. They are enforced through state raids, arrests, coerced “rehabilitation,” public humiliation, and years of fear.

Still, we endure. Still, we exist.

Visibility, when it happens, is often met with backlash. In 2012, Seksualiti Merdeka, a public festival of dialogue and storytelling, was banned under Section 27A of the Police Act, with the Malaysian Bar and UN Special Rapporteurs documenting the ban and the harassment of organizers. In more recent years, even health workshops have been cancelled for acknowledging queer lives. Rainbow-colored items have been seized. Books pulled from shelves. Public officials routinely decry our existence as a threat to morality and sovereignty.

We are told: you may live, but only if you hide. You may exist, but never demand recognition. But what we know - deep in our bones - is this: it is not our visibility that offends. It is society’s refusal to see.

We are not asking for applause. We are asking to exist in peace. Recognition is not something handed down by the powerful - it is something we insist on in every space we inhabit. In small apartments where friends become family. In crisis shelters held together by community donations. In WhatsApp groups where we offer each other advice, referrals, emergency cash. These digital lifelines are fragile sanctuaries, shaped by the necessity and sustained by trust. 

WhatsApp’s encryption lends a layer of protection but it was not designed with our safety in mind. What emerges in these chats is not just survival – it is strategy. These groups offer more than immediate relief; they provide the mutual care and collective defence that institutional systems continue to deny us. They are not a substitute for state responsibility – but they are blueprints for the future we are already living.

And yet, even as we do this work – quietly, tirelessly, Malaysia steps into the regional spotlight as ASEAN chair. While the nation claims moral leadership abroad, at home it criminalises, erases, and silences its queer citizens. This contradiction is not lost on us. How can a country speak of human rights in regional forums while denying them within its own borders? The world may laud Malaysia’s diplomacy – but those of us living in the margins know that visibility without protection is a double-edged sword. We do not need just need statements – we need structural change.

Where the state disappears, civil society steps in. Organizations like SEED Malaysia, Justice for Sisters, PLUHO, and PT Foundation provide essential services: access to HIV medication, legal aid, housing support, food, and counselling. These groups operate in hostile environments, often without funding, always at risk. But they do it anyway - because they understand that survival cannot wait for approval.

Malaysia often offers a cruel trade: stay silent and we won’t come for you. But this is not safety. It is erasure dressed up as tolerance. It is the illusion of peace built on the suppression of our truths.

We do not ask for permission to exist. We do not bargain with oppression. What we ask for - what we demand - is justice. Fairness. Safety. A future that includes us.

And change, though slow, is happening. In 2021, the Federal Court struck down part of a Selangor Sharia law that overlapped with Section 377A. This signalled an important precedent: that religious law is not above constitutional protections. Youth movements, like UNDI18 and the Women’s March, have begun to centre queer rights as part of broader struggles. Online, queer creators, artists, and advocates are rewriting the story - demanding more than survival.

But perhaps the greatest revolution is this: we keep showing up for each other.

We build shelter when it’s stripped away. We raise emergency funds. We attend court hearings. We deliver food. We create our own mental health resources. We hold vigils when we lose one of our own. We craft joy, even in grief. We hold each other tightly, because we understand - sometimes, only we will show up.

In this spirit, we call for a Malaysia that reflects us. A Malaysia that acknowledges every one of us as citizens, as human beings, as equals.

These are not idealistic notions. These are the building blocks of democracy.

Imagine a Malaysia where a trans teen walks into school without fear. Where a queer couple applies for a loan without being asked invasive questions. Where we are not edited out of textbooks or erased from public memory.

This Malaysia is not impossible. It is already being built - in the margins, in the in-betweens, by people who believe we all deserve to thrive.

They may try to silence us - but silence has never erased us. No law, no censorship, no denial can undo what we know: we are here. Our lives are our truth. Our identities, our resistance.

We endure. We persevere. With purpose. With defiance. With dignity.

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Mitch Yusof is Co-founder and Executive Director for SEED Malaysia – the first Trans-led community-based Non-Profit NGO that 
provides a peer-based drop-in center and outreach program for transgender community.

Disclaimer: This published work was prepared with the support of the Heinrich Böll Stiftung. The views and analysis contained in the work are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the foundation. The author is responsible for any liability claims against copyright breaches of graphics, photograph, images, audio, and text used.