Meet Nisha Ayub, who survived years of suffering to become Malaysia’s most prominent transgender activist
Human Rights Watch has said that Malaysia is “one of the worst countries” in the world for transgender people.
Nisha Ayub has endured virtually everything thrown at Muslim-majority Malaysia’s repressed transgender community: contempt, violence, arrest and sexual assault in a prison where she was sent to become a “real man”.
She has attempted suicide, beaten down by strict Islamic laws that activists say subject transgender people to increasing legal constraints, discrimination and marginalisation.
“The way they treat you is like you don’t have any rights, you don’t have any dignity,” said Nisha, 37, dressed in the flowing skirt and long-sleeve shirt favoured by Malaysian Muslim women.
But she channelled the fury over her mistreatment into advocacy, and has become the country’s most prominent LGBT activist, despite the personal risk that entails.
In March she became the first transgender woman named one of the US State Department’s International Women of Courage, which recognises those fighting for rights and equality.
The way they treat you is like you don’t have any rights, you don’t have any dignity
A Muslim, Nisha’s first overt gender-identity expression came at age nine in a costume contest at her strait-laced boy’s school – she dressed as a ballerina.