Indonesia’s top Islamic body has labelled the LGBTQIA+ community as the “Lesbian Gay Sodomy and Obscenity Movement” as it warns locals not to engage in cross-dressing traditions as part of celebrating the nation’s Independence Day.
Indonesians celebrate Independence Day on August 17 each year.
The day commemorates the end of Dutch colonisation in 1945, and has traditionally marked the holiday with a range of popular folk traditions including sports competitions and parades that sometimes include cross-dressing.
One of these is “sarong football” where men wear traditional Indonesian women’s wrap dresses while playing soccer in order to make the game more difficult.
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Lesbian, Gay, Sodomy and Obscenity movement
The folk tradition has never been associated with homosexuality or transgender identity in Indonesia and is instead intended to be humorous.
However, Indonesia’s Ulema Council warned that cross-dressing was “haram” in Islam in a statement ahead of this year’s festivities, warning against the tradition in what it said was “an effort to prevent the covert campaign of the Lesbian, Gay, Sodomy and Obscenity (LGSP) movement” from gaining ground in the country.
Governmental and Islamic authorities have been pushing a harsher line on LGBTQIA+ issues in Indonesia in recent years, though homosexuality is technically still legal in most of the country.
A broader campaign
Last year, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto passed a presidential decree labelling the “dissemination of LGBTQ culture” as a “non-military threat” to Indonesia’s “national sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national security.”
The Ulema Council has also been pushing for a bill that would ban “LGBTQ activities” and “pro-LGBTQ campaigns” in public spaces and for an anti-LGBT curriculum in Islamic schools.
Homosexual acts in private between consenting adults were decriminalised in Indonesia in 1993 with an age of consent of 18.
However, several local jurisdictions have passed so-called anti-pornography or anti-prostitution laws that have been used to target LGBTQIA+ people, while the autonomous province of Aceh punishes homosexuality with flogging under Sharia law.
In 2022, Indonesia criminalised sex outside of marriage where a complaint is made by an immediate family member.
However, the government said the bill would not apply to LGBTQIA+ people or to tourists.
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