4-4-2024 (JAKARTA) For over a decade, Joya Patiha, a 43-year-old Indonesian transgender woman, has witnessed firsthand how the shifting weather patterns in the mountain-ringed city of Bandung have impacted her income as a sex worker. Longer rainy seasons, stronger winds, and particularly harsh years have seen her earnings plummet by up to 80 percent.
Transgender women like Patiha are among the most vulnerable to the effects of extreme weather linked to climate change, while also suffering disproportionately when disasters strike. “No one is coming out during the longer rainy season,” Patiha laments. “It is very hard to make money during that unpredictable weather.”
Indonesia, an archipelagic nation comprising over 17,000 islands, is particularly susceptible to the consequences of climate change. Transgender women, who often face greater stigma and marginalization than transgender men or other LGBTQ Indonesians, are also among those hardest hit by extreme weather events.
Many transgender women in Indonesia, like Patiha, are shut out of the formal economy and survive as buskers and sex workers – occupations that rely on their ability to solicit clients outdoors. Sherly Wijayanto, a 28-year-old transgender woman from Jakarta, worked as a busker for around seven years until the increasingly volatile weather forced her to seek alternative options.
“I no longer want to endure the heat and rain on the streets,” said Wijayanto, who now sings with the trans-led arts group Sanggar Seroja and runs their social media channel.
As these women and the groups that support them strive to adapt their precarious livelihoods to the new climate reality, they are also seeking to raise awareness of the challenges posed by extreme weather in a nation as vast and diverse as Indonesia.
Despite a historical acceptance of gender-fluid communities in Indonesia, a rising tide of conservative Islam in the world’s largest Muslim-majority country has fueled anti-LGBTQ persecution. LGBTQ individuals are sometimes blamed for problems related to climate change, according to Arif Budi Darmawan, a researcher at the Bandung-based Resilience Development Initiative.
“Those outside the binary category are often labeled with the category ‘deviant,’ [and] associated with the causes of environmental problems and disasters,” said Darmawan, who has researched how climate change affects transgender Indonesians.
These attitudes have led to the exclusion of LGBTQ people from plans meant to support Indonesians dealing with the effects of climate change. The Indonesian government’s five-year development plan, which includes provisions for vulnerable groups, does not list transgender individuals among them.
“Women, the elderly, and people with disabilities are mentioned, but there is no provision for sexual and gender minorities,” Darmawan said, adding that the lack of government recognition of their precarity means transgender people have few social safety nets. “Climate change makes the vulnerable even more vulnerable.”
Some transgender women are seeking their own solutions. To raise awareness about climate change, Sanggar Seroja organizes film nights, fashion shows, and discussions with other queer communities. The group also surveyed 80 members of the transgender community in Jakarta to assess how climate change affected their incomes, frequency of illness, and changes in spending from 2021 to 2022.
Nearly 93 percent of respondents saw decreased income during the rainy season, and 72 percent had increased expenses. The group’s coordinator Rikky, who asked that his first name only be used, said unpredictable weather also led to “illness, debt, stress, conflicts with local residents, and heightened levels of violence.”
Like singer Wijayanto, Patiha has sought alternative opportunities. In 2021, she joined an entrepreneurship program with the Bandung-based NGO Yayasan Srikandi Pasundan, which focuses on empowering transgender women. The NGO offered guidance on starting a small business, mentoring, and support with tasks like marketing products.
Patiha launched a cake-making business that same year, employing three transgender friends when orders stacked up. She also started making and selling her own perfume last December. “My small business is not impacted by the unpredictable weather as I promote it through social media and e-commerce,” Patiha said, free from the income-sapping vagaries of the rain clouds and strong winds.
