A great deal of my teen years was spent on struggling with my sexuality and learning to understand and appreciate my emotion and desire as what they are regardless of what our heteronormative society portrayed them to be.
After mentally and spiritually liberating and purging myself of some of the ridiculous notions of normalcy, I felt alive again. For the first time, not only women can be beautiful, men too. For the first time, the beauty of maleness (which I obviously appreciate) was not limited to the dry vocabulary "handsome". Now, men are also gorgeous, pretty, and sexy. The (self-acclaimed) liberation has opened up a plethora of new aesthetical experiences.
Today I met up with a few friends coming home from studies. Apparently police has set up road blocks amidst the tension of Bersih 2.0 Assembly, even here in Kota Sarang Semut, 400 kilometers from the capital. We're not joining the street protest or the indoor assembly, but I think all of us expressed concern over the danger of wearing yellow on this Saturday.
The concern was valid and I don't question it. But who has given our government and its machineries the mandate of imposing restrictions on clothing? The roadblocks may have purposes other than banning yellow shirts, but without adequate transparency and proper explanations on the purpose of setting up roadblocks, the effect achieved are the same - now people avoid wearing yellow, whether the Bersih logo is printed on the clothes or not.
I grew up being told that some of my innocuous feelings go against the law and values of this country. When I thought I have freed myself from fear of being different, having found space to channel my suppressed feelings and people who would understand, it was so easy to believe that nobody could take away those internal freedom from me anymore.
I was wrong. Now, I dare not wear yellow for fear of being stopped by police, for fear of what would happen after being stopped by police. I felt being forced back into the closet again. I am appalled. After so long a way I have come, this is fucking not happening.
You know the Day of Silence that is observed in some schools of the US, where students voluntarily stay silent for one day to raise awareness of the silencing effect of anti-LGBT bullying and harassment at school. This Saturday, we will see a lot of yellow, but at the same time some yellow will be wiped out from our vision because of fear.
The blog will be in yellow these few days in acknowledgement of the courage of Malaysians in pursuing freedom and happiness.
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