Police Harassment of Transgender People

Jenn, a transgender sex worker, was arrested in 2009 with a group of cisgender (non-transgender) female sex workers during a raid of a hotel in Brickfields, a bustling neighborhood in central Kuala Lumpur. When police noted that the sex on her identity card was male, they brought her out to the street and presented her to the gathering crowd. “They were informing the public that I was not female,” said Jenn. “It made me feel shy, sad, humiliated. They also brought TV cameras with them. I hid my face.” [91]

Rokiah said police in Kuantan, the capital of Pahang, arrested her in 2004, sexually groped her, and placed her in a male police cell, accusing her of prostitution and of “wearing girl clothes.” She was released on bail and went to Kuala Lumpur to file a complaint against the police who had groped her. She does not know if there was any follow-up to the complaint, but the police dropped the charges against her. [92]

Azlene was also arrested by police in Kuantan in 2004 on prostitution charges. They put her in a male cell and shaved her head. When she was taken to court, Azlene pled not guilty: “We said, ‘Prostitution is just for woman, my identity card says male.’ In court I dressed like a man. It contradicted the accusation.” Although the definition of prostitution under federal criminal law is gender-neutral (as opposed to under Sharia law, where it only applies to women), the court acquitted Azlene. [93]

Transgender people detained by the police under other laws are also subjected to mistreatment. Police sexually assaulted Chunhua, a 27-year-old transwoman in Kuantan, when stopping her in the course of a “routine” drug check in October 2013. In Kuantan, as in several other Malaysian cities, police stop passersby’s and require them to take on-the-spot urine tests. They used this opportunity to abuse and humiliate Chunhua:

I was arrested by the police once [and forced] to do a urine test. They were stopping people randomly. The police were a bit rough. They asked me to show my sexual parts—in a parking lot, in front of other people. I was dressed in women’s clothing. For other men, they asked them to pee behind trees, but for me, they wanted to see the penis. They said, ‘Oh, quite big!’

It was humiliating. The others were laughing at me. The police were saying, ‘You want to be a pondan, but you have a penis.’ They touched my breasts and my butt. They just looked at the penis. Then they let me go because my urine was okay. [94]

Police also subject transgender women to extortion. Karima, a 40-year-old transgender HIV activist, did sex work in the Chow Kit neighborhood of Kuala Lumpur for two months in 2007 when she faced a personal financial crisis. On one occasion, her client was a police officer. Karima said, “After sex with him, he comes out with his police identity card and says, ‘I have things to do and you know I’m a policeman, I’m expecting services free of charge.’” [95]

Sharan, a transwoman in Kuala Lumpur who briefly engaged in sex work, told Human Rights Watch:  “When I was a sex worker, the police were my customers, but un-paying customers. They said, ‘I’m there to help you.’” Sharan felt that if she refused to have sex with the police for free, she could be arrested. [96]

The organization KRYSS, in its May 2014 report on violence against lesbian and bisexual women and transgender people in Malaysia, cites one transgender interview subject who “reported that two police officers in Penang asked her and her transwomen friends for ‘protection money’—about fifteen to twenty Malaysian ringgit (US $5 to US $6) in exchange for not being arrested.” [97]

HIV outreach workers raised concern that police conduct forced sex workers to have sex without condoms. Noor, who works with an HIV outreach program in the northern state of Perak, said, “We do distribution of condoms [to transgender sex workers], but when there are raids in hotels, police will say to people, ‘I’m taking you to lockup because you have condoms.’” [98] In a 2006 qualitative study of 15 transgender women, all but one of whom had engaged in sex work, respondents said police would normally charge transgender women with prostitution if they were caught carrying more than three condoms. [99]

Transgender women’s experiences with the police vary, and some face little police harassment. Shila, a 40-year-old transgender woman in Negeri Sembilan, told Human Rights Watch, “Unlike the religious authorities, the police don’t care so much about these issues [cross-dressing]. They treat us okay. I’ve had no problems with the police in 15 or 20 years of living here. They’re like friends.” [100] However, Justice for Sisters reported that other transwomen have been arbitrarily detained in Negeri Sembilan. [101]