Page 72 - CONFERENCE BOOK OF INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON GENDER, CULTURE AND SOCIETY (ICGCS) 2021

CONFERENCE PROGRAM AND ICGCS 2021

ABSTRACT BOOK

Gender and Sexuality

EXIT POLITICS AND TRANSWOMEN IN BALI AND

YOGYAKARTA: UNDERSTANDING TRANSGENDERISM IN

INDONESIA

Nazrina Zuryani, Andrew Vandenberg, Tedi Erviantono
Universitas Udayana

The struggle to win acceptance for transwomen and overcome stigma, discrimination,

homophobia and transphobia took advantage of opportunities after the collapse of the

Suharto dictatorship, even if the rise of puritanical Islamism has also shrunk those

opportunities. This paper draws upon: arguments about the exit politics of collective

action to achieve LGBT human rights and a multicultural gender order; arguments

about resisting the compulsory binary order of cis men and cis women; and arguments

about the contingencies of political constructivism. In Yogyakarta and several places in

Bali, we compare the achievements, setbacks and contexts for transwomen’s networks

of mutual support. We argue that deep shifts in state institutions posed an opportunity

for collective action around exit poltics but puritanical Islamism has since mobilized a

backlash to limit those opportunities. The way those opportunities were taken up and

the effects of the Islamist backlash have been contingent upon how state institutions

interact with the religious sensibilities of local authorities, villagers, and families.

Keywords: Bali, exit politics, transwomen, transgendersim, Yogyakart

Short Biography:

Dra. NAZRINA ZURYANI, MA, PhD is a senior lecturer in Udayana University since 1990.

She holds PhD (2007) in Sociology from Newcastle University Australia. She is undertaken

MA (1996) in Demography from the ANU Canberra. Her recent publication was 2021 as

editor (with Andrew Vandenberg) of Palgrave Macmilan book on "Security, Democracy

and Society in Bali, trouble with protection". One article was written with Tedi Erviantono

(Chapter 6) on 'Gender Dualism as Degendering Cosmic Multicultural Tolerance of

Wargas: Community Security Practices in North Bali". This article is one of her main
interest and will be the focus in the near future besides her many topic interests.

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