Anti-cross dressing laws do not affect only transgender communities, but also something as “ordinary” as a man wearing an earring, said activist Marina Mahathir.

She said as the co-producer of the young women’s TV series ‘3R - Respect, Relax, Respond’, she was barred from showing such a man by the Censorship Board, although the man was supposedly the ‘Bachelor of the Year’ according to another magazine.

He had supposedly ran afoul with the law because of a gold earring that he was wearing.

In addition, she said her female hosts also used perform sketches where they roleplay as a family, but they were later barred from performing male roles because of anti-cross dressing laws.

“So it (the law) can come out even in the simplest, stupidest ways. It is not just about transgenders.

"I just want you to know that with these laws, you can trip up on them in so many ways that you don’t even know about,” she told a forum at the Universiti Malaya Law Faculty today.

Also present at the forum on freedom of expression are Global Movement of Moderates Foundation CEO Saifuddin Abdullah and UM law lecturer Azmi Sharom.

The award-winning 3R series is aired every week on TV3, and all of its presenters are women.

Previously, the Court of Appeal had declared that Section 66 of the Syariah Criminal (Negri Sembilan) Enactment 1992 is unconstitutional and void, as it violates the rights of those suffering from gender dysphoria or gender identity disorder. Similar provisions also exist in other states.
 
The Negeri Sembilan Islamic Affairs Department’s (Jains) has since appealed against the landmark decision.
 
Limited point of view

Meanwhile, Marina who is also a member of Sisters in Islam (SIS), also expressed disappointment when a student told her during the question and answer session that she is researching on the issue of polygamy, but her supervisor had told her not to speak to SIS on the matter.
 
“She said that it is better for me to get opinions from people from the Selangor Islamic Affairs Department (Jais), the Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim), and things like that, but not SIS, because SIS is going in the wrong direction,” the student said.
 
Marina replied that this is unfortunate because the student would then end up with only one point of view, whereas SIS' had done “ground-breaking” academic research in the field.
 
She said the SIS research team had interviewed over 1,000 husbands, wives, and children from polygamous marriages, the scope of which has never been done before anywhere in the world.
 
Marina (right) said the study has found that most of the people involved in polygamous marriages – including the husbands – are unhappy.
 
While acknowledging that polygamy is permitted in Islam, Marina said discussions should be held to find the causes of this unhappiness and find ways to tackle it.
 
“These are the lived realities of people. To not include that… I mean, if you ask Jais or Jakim, their findings are that everybody is very happy. Our finding is that nobody is happy, not even the husbands.
 
“I am very sorry for you that you had to put up with a lecturer like that,” she said.
 
'Discussions can lead to solutions'

On the issue of freedom of expression, Marina lamented that those who oppose it often cite the worst examples of its use as a pretext to limit the freedom.

A favourite instance, she said, is the fear that it would benefit dissenters.
 
Marina said that freedom of expression can help governments as well, because the discussions that it fosters can help governments find solutions to problems.
 
As an example, she said she was seated next to the then Health Minister Chua Jui Meng during a 1999 conference on AIDS, when the term ‘compulsory licencing’ was mentioned in a speech.
 
The minister supposedly turned to her to ask what the term means, and she responded by briefing him on the spot on the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) rules regarding the compulsory licensing of patents.
 
Under the rules known as the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (Trips), a government can allow generic versions of life-saving drugs to be produced without consent from the patent holder under some circumstances.
 
“If we did not have the opportunity to bring that forward and do that right there and then, and the ability to express all that, today, Malaysians with HIV will not have free medicine from public hospitals.
 
“It was really that point that got Malaysia’s free anti-retroviral medicines in the hospitals today. This is not done anywhere in the world and it makes them (the government) look great,” said Marina, who is also a prominent HIV/AIDS activist.
 
AIDS is a disease that weakens the patient’s ability to fend of other diseases, and HIV is the virus that causes AIDS.