Today is World Human Rights Day. A day so sacrosant for each and everyone of us, for it serves as a reminder of the need to keep intact those rights that we have earned by virtue of simply being human.

Human rights are birthrights of each and everyone. But sadly this privilege most unfortunately has been eclipsed by the stigma and prejudice cast upon people who form the exception, who stand out in community for simply living a life honest to their conscience - the transsexuals and homosexuals.

In Malaysia, both the above mentioned communities live cringing for something that should naturally be theirs - the right to their basic fundamental rights.

As homosexuality is viewed a crime under the law, this has forced many gay women and men to go 'underground', to remain in the closet and maintain a low profile. Their ability to exercise their human rights is vanquished because of their sexual orientation, of desiring a person of the same sex.

Whatever happened to the seriousness of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, one can only wonder. For if the revered declaration is given due respect, how we explain the disrespect shown towards it?.

Article 1 of the Declaration says all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 2 states 'everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this declaration, without distinction of any kind such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

Based on news reports of how transsexuals and homosexuals are treated, it is clear that they are considered party to the declaration and are supposed to have lost their right ironically by merely being as espoused by Article 3 of the declaration "everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person".

It is the fear of the stigma that might befall them and the backlash on their family that has forced transsexuals and homosexuals to end up 'rejecting' the privileges accorded by virtue of one being a human. The decision to love someone of the same sex looms like the Damocles sword over the head of a big many gay women and men. Their worry is endless, their sadness untold.

The same mental and emotional anguish is endured by transsexuals or mak nyahs as this community is called locally. Their courage to live life on their terms has coerced a priced from them - snatching their birthright to be and lead a life of their choice.

Unlike homosexuals who seem incognito vis-a-vis their appearance, such is not the case for mak nyahs, who end up receiving the public wrath for appearing the way they do, dressing up and looking like a woman.

Society, unashamedly, has taken upon itself to act as the judge, jury and executioner in deciding how a mak nyah should lead her life. The keepers of public morality have erroneously but stubbornly decided that they have a right to dictate how an individual leads their life.

Whilst transsexuals and homosexuals are just as much human as are the 'ordinary' people, their right to enjoy a life free of censure and discrimination is forfeited from them, by the very people who go on to profess care and concern for fellow humans.

Zero tolerance

The recent hoo-haa over the marriage of transsexual Jessie Chung (formerly Jeffrey Chung) and Joshua Beh only goes to enforce the fact that the public is still judgemental when the issue concerns homosexuals and transsexuals.

In Malaysia, the legal 'blessing' for homosexuals and transsexuals to wed is a thorny issue, one which sadly will never see the light of the day.

Prior to Chung' case, the local newspapers carried a story of Mumtaz, a transsexual who was forced to strip naked by three policemen at a police station to prove that she is really a woman. Mumtaz's request for a policewoman to be present was turned rejected and to make matters worse, the male cops crossed all lines of decency when they started asking her questions about her sexual preferences.

Mumtaz further endured humiliation when the cops accused her of being a sex worker after they seized two condoms wrappers from her at a hotel she had stayed with her boyfriend. She was subsequently remanded for four days to facilitate investigations.

Reading Mumtaz's plight and the raise of eyebrows in the case of Chung, one can dare conclude that as caring a society as Malaysians claim to be, we have yet to display tolerance towards our transsexuals and homosexuals.

Instead, the society is quick to persecute and condemn these two communities, without taking the trouble to learn about them before rebuking them as a social malaise.

The stand taken by Islamic learned scholar, Harussani Zakaria, the mufti of Perak has further scandalised this issue when he rejected any such claim of a man trapped in a woman's body in Islam. Sunday Mail (Nov 20) quoted him as saying that it was haram or not permissible for one to change God's creation, with the exception of hermaphrodites or khunsa (those born with male and female sexual organs).

The mufti defiantly dismissed a claim by certain Muslim transsexual activists that the University Al-Azhar in Cairo, Egypt (one of Sunni Islam's top religious institutions) has come out with a fatwa or edict saying that Islam allows sex-change operation.

Harussani dismissed the claim as "mengarut". For the record, the 1995 fatwa from Az-Azhar stated that a man can undergo the sex reassignment surgery if a doctor deems the intervention necessary to bring out the signs of femininity or masculinity which are present but hidden.

While countries like Iran and Egypt allow their citizens to officially undergo gender change with relative ease, other nations like Jordan, Lebanon and Syria whilst consenting to gender change do so through complicated and lengthy court proceedings.

Reflect humanity

The issue affecting the transsexual community has received support from the Malaysian Human Rights Commission, with its Commissioner Professor Hamdan Adnan urging the medical and legal fraternities to take the much needed stand in helping clear the status of transsexuals.

In a Sunday Mail article dated Nov 20, 2005, Prof Hamdan succintly put it when he said the medical fraternity had the final say in deciding whether a union between a man and a man who who has undergone sex reassignment surgery is permissible under the law.

"Once an individual is medically acknowledged as a transsexual, the necessary legalities must be put in place," he was quoted as saying.

Suhakam has stopped short of suggesting that the fatwa imposed by Malaysia on sex reassignment surgeries back in 1983 be challenged. In any cse, had this human rights watchdog even hinted that the edict be re-looked, it would have stirred a hornet's nest.

Amidst all this conundrum comes the deafening silence from the country's leader himself, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, a man who professes to have empathy and reverence for fellow humans.

Abdullah's refusal to even talk about the issue of transsexuals and their plea for a gender change in their identity card is baffling. Knowing very well the incongruity posed by the law, transsexuals are unable to secure a job, acquire a loan to purchase a car, a house, adopt a child or get a health insurance. This crippling scenario has led many of them to go into sex work.

Now, keeping in mind the many hassles and obstacles that disallow transsexuals to enjoy a quality life, it would only be right that the country's leader be empathatic and intervene, to help improve these people's lot.

To completely ignore them and regard their concerns as a non-issue might exert a heavy price on the ruling Government. Should the transsexuals and homosexuals choose to cast their vote, one should not hold it against them if their support for the Government wavers.

JJ RAY started her career with a mainstream publication. A non-conformist, she soon saw the barriers that went up whenever, through her writing, she tried to make the world a home for one and all.