GTLF: The Most Inclusive & Radical Festival

After the removal of the portraits of LGBT Malaysians in August in Penang, it felt risky to be doing anything queer in Penang again. But three months and several risk management meetings later, we pulled off a very queer George Town LITERARY Festival, where we asked ourselves questions like “Are the Arts just bigger closets?” As this year’s George Town Literary Festival was themed The State of Freedom, festival director Bernice Chauly felt it important to celebrate queer writing and invited me to be one of the curators. My task, particularly, was to help programme some of the queer panels as well as invite a few queer writers to speak.

Yes, we were all a little nervous, but Bernice was adamant we take this chance. It was going to be her last festival as director. If we are going to celebrate the freedom of expression, we must do it, not just talk about it. Even if we needed to have risk assessments to make sure we do it right.

Deaf gay man on dealing with rejection from everywhere

By ANTHONY CHONG.

After I came out of closet as a gay man to my parents, I remember clearly something my mother said. She said, I would inherit her house entirely, but only if I chose another path. In other words, marry a woman. She would even accept any woman she had previously warned me not to marry. I said I would be more than happy to share the house with my two elder brothers.

The house is not my life dream anyway. I don’t plan on sitting at home. There are many things to explore outside the house and the country. I want to live my life without any kind of discrimination or oppression. We could practice our freedom to do the things we wish, yet remember never to cross the line: we should not mind the business of others. Others could do the same. However, this is not the case. 

LGBTQ oppression happens. Audism happens. (“Audism is a set of beliefs that include: hearing people are superior to Deaf people; Deaf people should be pitied for having futile and miserable lives; Deaf people should become like hearing people as far as possible; and shunning of sign languages.” — Wikipedia)

Deaf Community Merdeka

Malaysia has gained independence since 31 August 1957. Every citizen, with or without disability, celebrates the Merdeka every year. Deaf people also celebrate Merdeka.

For me, Merdeka is where everyone can enjoy the privilege of being Malaysians in the country. But is the Deaf community really Merdeka yet? We encounter many obstacles. People decide our destiny. People decide how we should receive our education. People do not see us as a cultural and linguistic minority. We are not allowed to use our official language, BIM, which is Malaysian Sign Language or Bahasa Isyarat Malaysia, to learn Bahasa Malaysia in schools but instead are forced to use an ineffective coding system. Without BIM, we were not able to excel in Bahasa Malaysia.

We have been trying to tell People about our language but our messages never reached them. Deaf children grow up without BIM and was expected to be fluent in Bahasa Malaysia. The children would struggle in acquiring Bahasa Malaysia because they could not make any sense of the language without BIM. We are Malaysians, we should not have to struggle in acquiring Bahasa Malaysia. 

To cut a long story short, we are surviving the society, with minimal proficiency in Bahasa Malaysia. We are pleading the Ministry of Education to replace the current coding system with BIM to allow Deaf children to acquire Bahasa Malaysia without obstacles. Just as Malaysia fought for Merdeka, we will keep fighting until our rights as a Deaf person are rightfully recognised.  It will be truly Merdeka for us when Malaysia hears the cry from our community and recognise the Deaf community as a community with different language, just like Chinese, Indian and Malay, Iban, Kadazan and other linguistic minorities instead of seeing us as a person with disability.

Deaf Community Merdeka! 

Written on 30 August 2018

Deaf and Gay and Proud to be Both

By ANTHONY CHONG.

After struggling to fall in love with women, I finally affirmed my identity as a gay person at the age of 21. But I did not have the strength to open up to anyone as I feared losing my family, my friends, and my reputation as a deaf community leader. 

The deaf community in Malaysia is small. Without any intention, I had emerged as an exemplary deaf person in the eye of the deaf community. But it wasn’t until I entered the deaf community at age of 18 that I found someone to guide me. As I lost much time, I expedited my learning of deaf culture and language until I was ready to live as a cultural deaf person. 

What is a cultural deaf person? A cultural deaf person looks at oneself as part of a linguistic minority. He is proud of being fluent in Malaysian Sign Language and has sufficient cultural knowledge to survive mainstream society. He also does not see his hearing disability as a disadvantage. The disadvantages we experience are produced by mainstream society.