Tales of the Waria: Inside Indonesia's Third-Gender Community

By Kathy Huang
Posted on June 1, 2012

 Originally published on HuffingtonPost.com

The ITVS-funded documentary by Kathy Huang premieres Sunday, June 3 on Global Voices on the WORLD Channel. An online social screening and chat will be held on Monday, June 4 at 8pm ET/5pm PT with the filmmaker to discuss issues raised in the film.

This past March the Associated Press broke an unexpected story concerning Barack Obama's childhood in Indonesia. Apparently, as a young boy growing up in Jakarta, Obama's care had been entrusted to a transgender woman named Evie. American readers were shocked. What were the chances of the president having a transgender nanny -- and in Indonesia, of all places? Having worked closely with the transgender community in Indonesia for the past several years, I can say: actually, not that bad. In Indonesia biological men who believe that they are born with the souls of women are known as "warias." The term is a melding of two Indonesian words: "wanita" ("woman") and "pria" ("man"). 

As a group, warias are diverse, encompassing what we in America might call cross-dressers, transsexuals, drag queens, and effeminate gay men. What unites them is an irrepressible feminine spirit. I first learned about warias in 2005, when I saw a newspaper photograph of a gorgeous waria who had won a beauty contest in Jakarta. I knew about the "ladyboys" of Thailand, but I had no idea that transgender people could live so openly in Indonesia, a country with the world's largest Muslim population. Like many Americans I had this notion of Islam as being oppressive and particularly unforgiving toward sexual minorities. How could a community of warias possibly exist?

Three years later my curiosity as a filmmaker got the better of me. I took some Indonesian language classes and traveled to Indonesia to experience the lives of warias firsthand. Under the counsel of Dr. Tom Boellstorff, an anthropologist with 20 years of field experience working with the queer community in Indonesia, I landed in Makassar, a coastal city in eastern Indonesia known for both its strong Muslim faith and historic openness toward transgender individuals. 

Read the entire article at HuffingtonPost.com 

Tales of the Waria will premiere as part of the Global Voices series on the WORLD Channel, Sunday, June 3 at 10 p.m. (check local listings). Starting June 4 the documentary will be available to view in entirety online via PBS Video (for a limited time only). 

Additionally, Kathy Huang sat down with ITVS to discuss her documentary Tales of the Waria and her hopes for the film's impact on audiences: 

Topics

From our blog

  1. ITVS Responds to Rescission Vote

    July 18, 2025

    [July 18, 2025] Carrie Lozano, President and CEO of the Independent Television Service (ITVS), issued the following statement in response to Congress' vote clawing back congressional approved funding for public media.Congress’ decision to pass the rescission package that removes the $1.1B of previously approved federal funds for the Corporation of…

  2. Protecting Our Future and Charting the Course Ahead

    June 4, 2025

    We are sharing the sad and difficult news that ITVS is reducing its staff by 13 individuals across the organization. For a staff so committed to our mission and to each other, this 20% staff reduction is a painful moment. Our dedicated staff have made important contributions that are part of ITVS' legacy and success story. In the past few months, ITVS has…

  3. ITVS Documentary "Greener Pastures" Honored by the Television Academy

    May 1, 2025

    The Television Academy announced that the ITVS-supported, Independent Lens documentary Greener Pastures will be celebrated at the 18th Television Academy Honors. Established in 2008, the Television Academy Honors Award recognizes “Television with a Conscience” and seeks to celebrate programs that inspire, motivate, and harness the power of…