BOOK EXCERPT | I know I am female, but I’d rather wear this kind of clothing, just like a man. I feel very comfortable in these clothes. If customers were to ask me, I’d tell them that I’m a “Cik”, a “Miss”. Sometimes they won’t know because they would think that I’m just a fat Chinese person, so they wouldn’t ask.
The guys in my hometown, they are not the same as those in the big cities. I used to stay in a city. In big cities, if I were to say I’m a Mister, they would accept me, they are more open there. But over here, they would look at me, the way they would look at me would make me feel very small. There would be something in their mind, as if they want to teach me a lesson.
So here, I would tell them to call me “Miss” so that they would know that I know who I am, that I’m not trying to pass as something else. The guys here are different. There are a lot of mat rempit here. Even when people highlight their hair, they would tegur, “Ha, can ah like that?” They would say things like that.
They would always look and check you. If you dress in the way they expect you to dress, they would think, “Oh, ini mesti kuat agama.” So they won’t say anything then.
My mother is a religious person. She teaches people how to mengaji. For her, who I want to be is up to me. If I want to change, there will be a calling so that I can change. So it depends on me. She would tell me if she were to mengubat me, use the traditional way, she would be in the wrong, because that is not Islam, and she is a religious person.
That is why, for my mother, it’s better that I change on my own, if I am going to change at all. She feels it’s better that I’m not forced to change, because she would just make me into a hypocrite and that would make it wrong in Islam. For her, it’s good enough that I know right from wrong, and respect my elders.
I prefer to be a guy. Girls have to be polite and soft. In my religion, when I play sports, I cannot wear shorts. Guys can wear shorts. For guys, there is a lot more freedom. It is like my religion is more open for them. You can have short hair, you don’t have to wear tudung. For me, I don’t like to wear dresses. They make me feel uncomfortable. I prefer to wear the kemeja because it’s not tight. I can walk easily and I can run.
For me, lesbian is like for girls and girls. For me, it’s more like I sometimes feel the need to become a guy. I want to change my gender but because of my religion, I cannot. So I just have to remain this way.
My school was next to an all-girls’ school. When those girls saw tomboys, they would become like gila, maniacs, and when they approach me, full of admiration and stuff, that would make me think that it’s better to be a guy than a girl. If you are a girl, nowadays, no guys chase girls, but girls are chasing guys. So if I become like this, the way I am now, I would have girls chasing me.
It’s not that I’m trying to be a guy. In my family, most of the guys are useless. Like my brother, he cannot afford to take care of his wife, so he has to stay with us. My brother-in-law is also like that. Once he found a new girl. He behaved like he was single and so he left my sister. From that point, I thought to myself, it’s better that I become the man in the house because I can afford to buy things for my girlfriend, and I am much better than them.
Head of the family
A guy is supposed to be the man, head of the family. He is supposed to take care of the financial problems. Because I can do it all by myself, I know that I am much better than them. Sometimes I feel like I’m a man. My brother and sister are divorced now and so with my nephews and nieces, I am the one who will take care of their needs, like if they want to buy a book or I would bring them out.
My nephews and nieces think that I’m a fat guy. They don’t think that I’m a woman. For my nephews and nieces, because they see me with my girlfriend, they would say we are married, even though my mother has told them that we are just friends.
The thing that makes me want to be more like a guy is because I would have the power. All the words that come out of your mouth is considered right by everyone around you, and as a man, I can do anything that I want. For example, for a girl, if they were to have sex with a guy, she would lose her virginity, she could get pregnant and the society would look down on her.
For a guy, you can have sex but if you lose your virginity, people would respect you, they’ll go like, “Wah! So early you lost your virginity!” All of that encouraged me to become more like a guy. To be a guy means I will have more power compared to if I’m a girl.
Even in shops, you see this. If a customer is a guy, he will scold the woman even if the woman is the boss. If it’s two guys, they will be more careful about what they say to each other. I see a lot of this happen at my workplace. My manager is a woman. When a male customer scolds my manager, and the area manager happens to come out and he’s a guy, I have seen the male customer change his tone and behaviour.
With a woman, men know that they can say anything they want and the worst thing a woman can do is cry. With another guy, male customers are more careful, because men will argue back because they have the power.
I realised that I wanted to be a guy when I was about nine years old. At that age, I could already see that for the girls, it was all about Barbie. Everything was Barbie. But for boys, they could have remote-controlled cars and BMX bicycles. I changed my name at the time. My mother asked the teacher about it, why my name was changed and she learnt that I was the one who changed it.
I had a boyfriend when I was 15, 16 years old, but with me, I was more like into games with my boyfriend, I would play games. I wasn’t like a girlfriend. With girls, yes, I would feel like I’m dating them. With guys, if you tell them that you like playing games, they will take you to play games. If you say you like football, they will take you to the field. With girls, I’d go watch movies, and girls with girls, “Kita lebih tahu, hati kita lebih lembut,” but with guys, they tend to pentingkan diri, lebih selfish.
Guys don’t care about you
Girls are more tender. Guys don’t care about you, but with girls, they will call you, even though sometimes it’s like menyampah 24 hours calling, but I feel like she cares about me, and when she talks to me over the phone, I calm down, I don’t feel annoyed any more.
I knew perempuan and perempuan cannot marry, but my girlfriend at the time would always calm me down. She would say, “It’s okay, we can study together.” It made me fall in love with her, the way she talked, the way she took care of me.
With my boyfriend, I didn’t have any good-morning calls, but with my ex, I had that. Itu sebab I jatuh cinta dengan perempuan, because of their tenderness. When I was younger, I didn’t have a girlfriend. I was very close to my brothers and most of the time, I was more in love with all the cool gadgets that I had or that my brothers had.
My brother would sometimes keep on saying, “Oh, she brings girls home” and my mother would say, “It’s up to her. Dia tak menyusahkan aku. Dia tahu bela diri sendiri. Dia tak rompak, dia tak ambil dadah, dia tak bunuh, cukup.”
For my mother, she knows that I know between right and wrong and even though other people will say things, she will always say that I can look after myself, she will always use the words, “daripada ambil dadah.” She will always say better I am like this, she will say, “Dia ada kereta sendiri, dia ada rumah sendiri, dia pergi kerja, sudah cukup, lebih baik daripada ambil dadah,” because around our area, there are many drug addicts.
My mother will also tegur other people who say things about me. Once a woman and her daughter kutuk me, so my mother got angry, she said, “Pakai tudung jangan kutuk orang, buka tudung baru boleh kutuk,” because when women wear the tudung, they cannot kutuk orang. If they wear the tudung, they cannot even raise their voices, they cannot talk about other people. They can nasihat but not kutuk.
When my mother answers these people with these kinds of words, it makes me feel that I want to be the man of the house. Her words encourage me more.
My father is very open. He treats me like a boy. Sometimes when we go out, and I don’t have any slippers, I will wear my mother’s slippers, he would say, “Kenapa pakai selipar perempuan? Pakai selipar lelaki. Tak macho!” Because dia pun takut if I become a girl. He tengok my sister kahwin, cerai, husband buat perangai, so I think dia takut for me.
If I have a chance to change my gender, I would do it, but everything depends on my mother. I will stay with my religion, but if I can I want to change. Even though I am like this, my mother is still supportive of me. She has a lot of faith in me. Sometimes, when I return home after work and she can see that I am stressed, like a lot of tension, she will ask me what happened at work. She will ask me every day about my work day.
Because some customers can be difficult, they can be very annoying. They will look at me because of how I dress, and they will treat me badly, especially the young Malay men who are more like mat rempit.
Once, I told my mother about a customer who was very rude. So she said, “Beritahu adik,” and my brother would ask who it is, and he would settle it for me. I wouldn’t know what he did but he would sort it out for me. I wouldn’t know what he said but those who annoyed me with their remarks would always tell me that my brother went to cari them, and I would just tell them, “padan muka.”
My mother knows that in our religion, we have our pegangan, so in the eyes of my religion, I am doing wrong, but she also knows that everyone has their own thoughts and feelings and in our religion, we cannot lie and be a hypocrite. Worse, if we are forced to pretend, my mother knows it can go to the point of bunuh diri.
I think my attraction to women is normal
It’s not that I don’t think I am normal. I think I am normal. I think my attraction to women is normal, I am just naturally this way. Sometimes I wish I was born male, but my mother would always say that I’m the only baby girl in the house, and so I cannot become a male.
Because in my house, the men have more power than the women, they can make any decision and I would always say to my mother, “Kan best jadi jantan?” and my mother would say, “Janganlah jadi macam tu, nanti mak tak da anak perempuan kechik.” She would like calm me down, bagi I lega.
There’s a lot of psychological effect when people look at me the way they do, and when they ask questions. When they ask, “Miss or Mister?” and I would say, “Miss,” they would still ask, “Not Mister?” and I would say, “No. It’s Miss, Miss.” It’s like they mencabar.
Sometimes I become angry, so I would say “binti.” Because for people like me, the hardest thing is to find a job, so I have to layan but sometimes my boss herself she will say no need to layan. She will try to calm me down. She will tell me, “You have a car. They only ride motor.”
Some companies, they won’t accept people like me because they will say, “Oh, ladies must wear skirts,” even though during the interview, they are not wearing skirts. They do that to try and make us leave the interview, they try to make us run away lah, no need to apply for the job, but my boss is okay.
Even though I want to be a guy, sometimes I think, better for me to be me. Because if I were a guy, I wouldn’t have any feelings for what it is like to be a woman. Because I am female, I know hati mereka. I know how females feel and think. Sometimes I do feel, “Kan best jadi jantan. Tak payah orang tengok aku. Aku boleh pergi tempat-tempat ni. Nak jalan nak pegang tangan dengan dia pun boleh.”
Then suddenly I would think, “Tapi aku nak kawan dengan perempuan macam mana? Aku tak kan dapat perempuan kot.” So for me it’s like pening, I don’t know what I want. I want to be a boy but at the same time, I want her to be by my side. Actually, I like the way I am but because people look at me the way they do, they bagi I rasa kurang, so they make me want to change to be a guy, they make me feel, “Better to become a guy so people will respect me more.”
If women and men were equal, if both have equal power, if girls and girls can marry, it’s okay for me to be this way. I wouldn’t feel a need to be a man.
This is just one of the many stories featured in 'Mata Hati Kita - The Eyes of Our Hearts' edited by Angela M Kuga Thas and Jac SM Kee, a collection which invites readers to witness the lives of lesbians, bisexual women and trans people and which speaks of our shared struggles of being human, of loving, of living for oneself and of living for others.
'Mata Hati Kita' can be purchased at Gerakbudaya's PJ bookstore, online at www.gerakbudaya.com and is soon to be released in eBook format at www.gerakbudayaebooks.com.
