The following is an excerpt from The Jakarta Globe and was first broadcast on Asia Calling, a regional current affairs radio program produced by Indonesian radio news agency KBR68H. You can find more stories from Asia Calling at www.asiacalling.org.

Mirrors were tucked behind embroidered drapes, prayer rugs spread over the carpet and fashion magazines replaced by copies of the Koran in preparation for breaking the fast at dusk on a quiet day near the end of Ramadan. In a quiet alley in the ancient Javanese city of Yogyakarta, Mariyani, a 50-year-old transgender hairdresser, has turned part of her salon into an Islamic school. 

Mariyani, a transgender hairdresser in Yogyakarta, who has 
turned her salon into a safe space for gay, lesbian and 
transgender Muslims to pray, as they are not often welcomed 
in mosques. (Photo courtesy of Asia Calling via The Jakarta Globe)

It’s a place where lesbian, gay and transgender Muslims — banned from Islamic schools and unwelcomed at mosques — can safely pray and discuss their religion. “Tonight we are breaking the fast and praying with 90 orphans and poor women from a nearby village. 

It’s my 50th birthday today and I want to thank God for giving me this time on earth. I will be called by God in the not too distant future, so I have to do the right thing,” says Mariyani. 

Mariyani was abandoned at birth and adopted by a Roman Catholic family in Yogyakarta. 

“I was baptized and raised as a Catholic. My adopted parents were very poor. From when I was a young child, I always played with girls’ toys and I knew very early on that I had the heart and spirit of a woman," Mariyani says. 

“When I was 13, even before I had a national identity card, I decided I would need to fend for myself.”

...

“I was 20 when I decided to start dressing like a woman. I had my heart broken when my boyfriend married a woman. It was then that I started meeting other transgenders and entered the dark night world. I sold my body on the streets to survive. I traveled across Indonesia working in the popular transgender beats so I could survive. I sold myself for less than 10 cents,” she laughs.

“That was the price back then.” Transgenders, or waria as they are known in Indonesia, have limited job opportunities.