Jakarta – Negative sentiment toward lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual (LGBT) people has grown, with government officials showing greater tendency to stigmatize the group, according to LGBT activists.
"People often assume that transgender people are sex workers," the chair of LGBT rights organization Arus Pelangi, Yuli Rustinawati, said on Monday, adding that people often discriminated based on trivial indicators such as Facebook profile pictures.
Yuli explained that transgender people usually lived in groups inside rented rooms, and that in two or three cases in Jakarta this year, letters had been sent to the homeowners calling for their eviction.
"The owner of the house couldn't refuse, as if he did, the people threatened to damage the house," she said.
Arus Pelangi recorded 142 cases of violence against LGBT people throughout Indonesia from January to March this year, including assaults, arrests, discrimination and hate speech, often with negative repercussions on the victim's psychological health.