Just Make It Stop!

Ahh, we're back in the wacky world of science fiction and fantasy, as viewed through the warped lens of Reactormag's genital-obsessed columnists.

Growing up as a queer person in Indonesia meant continually starving for representation.

It’s a Muslim country, no one’s going to stick their heads over that parapet, not if they want to keep the on their shoulders! 

However, when I turn to Western media, more often than not I’m met with disappointment—I find that I cannot relate to the queer characters at all.

Really? It’s just a Western conceit that thinks the only important thing is the sexuality then? 

Recently, my friends shared a post about the Amsterdam Rainbow Dress. I get the intended sentiment. It’s a call for inclusivity and equal rights for everyone in every country in the world. Still, I can’t help but wonder, with a definite sense of bitterness: Is that all these countries are to the people behind this project? Why does it feel like the dress is saying “we are more civilized than you are”? The dress gestures at solidarity, but flattens out nuance and historical reality in a way that feels in keeping with a particularly Western, European brand of paternalism that conveniently turns very real people actively fighting for their own rights into caricatures and passive victims.

Welcome to enlightenment! That’s exactly how it works-you’re a tick in the box to the very people who commissioned this post. 

Why do I, a queer person of color, have my existence reduced to the narrative that “your country is homophobic” and yet in the media, white characters get to be queer and live rich lives without being trapped and confined within the limits of an outsider’s view of their existence?

 Because your country IS homophobic, of course. And that's hardly the worst thing about it, is it?

The graphic novel follows Indu, a trans boy from the moon who struggles with culture shock when he and his adoptive mother move to New Earth. The language barrier makes it difficult for him to connect with his stepfamily and make friends at school, but Indu discovers that New Earth’s queer community are happy to welcome him.

We aren’t just a “developing country.” We aren’t going to be reduced to the neo-colonized tourist traps that have taken over Bali. We are so much more; we are of a rich history and culture that’s under constant threat of being forgotten if we don’t preserve it through our own stories.

You haven’t been able to preserve anything else of your culture in the face of Muslim expansion and conquest, have you?