“I am a woman. I never considered myself a man, because I’m not a gay man. I’m a woman.”
“Mama Migui” is what her community now calls her. Miguel dos Santos remains her “official” name. Migui lives in Dili, the capital city of Timor-Leste, a half-island nation between Indonesia and Australia. She’s proudly Timorese, a cook, a practicing Catholic, and a transgender woman.
When she walked into a seaside cafe to meet me, Migui noticed some men turn their heads and snigger. She brushed it off. She is all too familiar with the sneers and whispers — as a transgender woman living in Timor-Leste, Migui has experienced far worse.
Migui turns 70 this year. She’s seen three different countries govern the land she calls home, growing up in Timor during the Portuguese colonial era; seeing Portugal leave and Indonesia invade in 1975; and finally being part of Timor-Leste’s independence in 2002. “Since independence, things have changed a lot,” she says. “There are now a lot of us who are “out” [living freely as transgender people], and people are much more used to it.”
The change Migui talks about has been the result of the tireless work of Timor-Leste’s LGBTQ+ community, activists, and supporters. Together, they’ve slowly built support at all levels, from public and religious figures to families. And despite the challenges they still face, change is gradually happening.
MMigui started understanding her identity when she was in her mid-teens, living in her hometown in Liquiçá Municipality, Portuguese Timor. That’s when she began to feel comfortable living as a woman. “I never told my parents, but it was obvious. They knew,” she says.
“Corrective” rape, forced marriage, and “conversion” strategies are not uncommon for LGBTQ+ community members in Timor-Leste. Migui knows at least a dozen people who were kicked out of their family homes. Others, like her, were assigned more “masculine” jobs such as heavy lifting and manual labor. “I refused to do work that men usually did. My dad wasn’t happy. My brothers weren’t happy. They would beat me up.”
For the last 30 years, Migui has been living with a Chinese-Timorese family who she met through her employer during the resistance against the Indonesian occupation of her country in the mid 1970s. “They see me as both a mother and a father. They accept me, they respect me,” she says.
In the streets of her town, however, Migui has not always felt respected or welcomed. “When I walked around in the streets, there were a lot of people who bullied me and said nasty things. I usually ignored them and didn’t take it too hard. They didn’t understand,” she says. “I tried to explain to them that I’m not a man, but I’m also biologically not a woman. I just wanted to say to them that it doesn’t matter. What matters is that I live like anyone and work just like anyone.”
In many ways, Migui’s uncompromising stance on living her authentic self has paved the way for this religious and traditional country to become a more tolerant and accepting place for its LGBTQ+ community. Migui believes more people openly being transgender is the reason the country has become more tolerant over the past 20 years.
Last year’s Marsa ba Diversidade (March for Diversity) in the capital Dili was the country’s most attended pride parade yet. One thousand five hundred people attended the celebration, far surpassing the numbers for the previous years. Transgender dancers and drummers performed traditional routines alongside diverse groups of people, all of whom walked in solidarity with those fighting for acceptance. Migui was the oldest transgender person to march.
After the march, Migui paid a visit to Natalino Guterres, president of youth organization Hatutan and a leading organizer of the march, to bring him some food and to say thank you. Guterres later wrote on his Facebook page that Migui visited him because she wanted to thank him for organizing the event and giving her and others in the LGBTQ+ community the opportunity to proudly march on the streets. But Guterres said it was he who should be thanking Migui for being a trailblazer: “For being such an inspiration. For defying the odds. For being true to herself despite hatred and prejudice.”
Guterres too, has defied the odds. Despite being an activist, he hasn’t always been able to be open about his sexuality as a gay man — particularly at home. “We never talk about it. The last thing my dad said was: ‘It’s against our culture. You’re bringing shame upon your family and your grandparents.’”
Guterres’ painful conversation with his father happened before the LGBTQ+ momentum of recent years started to build. In 2016, several organizations including Hatutan got together to plan the country’s first ever Pride event, including workshops and panel discussions. In 2017, their hard work paid off and the first official Pride march was held in Dili.
Public support since then has also been bolstered by the former Prime Minister, Rui Maria de Araújo, who became the first Southeast Asian leader to publicly support LGBTQ+ rights. Araujo made a statement via video that was shared on local television and social media, after Guterres wrote to him. Resistance leader and former president Xanana Gusmao also lent his support through his presence at Hatutan events.
“My mum actually came to Pride last year without my knowledge, and my friends told me afterwards,” Guterres says. “We’ve won the support of the right kinds of people like the Prime Minister. They look up to these people. For [my parents], it was more about what other people think.”
Like many other countries, political and religious leadership shapes much of public opinion and cultural values. Getting the support of a major public figure such as the Prime Minister was a boon for activists who have worked hard to shift how the LGBTQ+ community is viewed and treated in Timor-Leste.
Guterres and Hatutan have been trying hard to engage the public, the religious community, and political leaders through a documentary they released last year, “Dalan ba Simu Malu” or “The Road to Acceptance.” The documentary profiles LGBTQ+ people and their family and friends, and has been screened in communities across the nation. “Timor is very family-oriented, which is why when we planned the video, we decided to focus on family acceptance,” Guterres says. “Things often happen at that level. The violence we talk about doesn’t necessarily happen on the street, it happens within the family. But if you talk about family values, it should be love, acceptance, and kindness.”
After a year of screening the documentary, Guterres believes the film’s message of acceptance and inclusion has started to resonate with the larger public. “We can see people change. Their way of speaking about [LGBTQ+ issues] is different. You could see they were shocked and laughing, but by the end of it, everyone spoke more respectfully. Many of them encouraged us to do more.”
Guterres believes that working with religious figures and using spiritual teachings has helped create gradual change in the country. During the resistance movement against Indonesia’s occupation — a key period in the country’s national identity — the church played a crucial role in providing support and leadership. Only 30 percent of the population identified as Catholic at the time. By the 1990s, that figure increased to 90 percent. The church is a major influencer of public opinion, and presents an opportunity to positively change Timorese hearts and minds.
That’s why the film originally included a short segment from a Catholic nun in Timor-Leste, who says “God teaches us to love each other. God doesn’t teach us “that person is LGBTQ+, I can’t love them.” But she can no longer be identified publicly — not everyone in the church shares her view, and she has faced threats of removal from some in her congregation.
Migui, like many of her fellow Timorese, goes to church weekly and has found an unlikely ally in the church’s priest, whose support is slowly changing the public’s attitudes toward the LGBTQ+ community.
In a collectivist culture like Timor-Leste, Guterres believes that living together in harmony and supporting each other is always going to be a central value. “When we fought for independence, everyone was part of it,” he says. “Everyone contributed in some way. So when you talk about independence, people should have their own personal freedoms too — like who they choose to love.”
