Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Hearty Love Story Turned Into A Farce By News Media And Immigration Official.


What began as an obstacle across the beautiful relationship between Fatine (Mohammed Fazdil Min Bahari) and Ian Young has been turned by our so-called “the people’s paper” into a confused mesh of tomatoes ready to be thrown back on the faces of the writers, editors and the paper “The Star”. The first mention was reasonable actually, professional; except for the mis-gendering. The usual usage of male pronouns to describe Fatine shows incredible disrespect to a woman Ian Young has called his wife.

Then came for some reason, two news articles on the same subject two days in a row, on the repercussions should Fatine be forced to return home. Datuk Abdul Rahman Othman, the Immigration Deparment director-general, also joined in the nastiness. The first news piece contained a quote which confirmed full bias.

He said the department would have to look at Mohammed Fazdil’s travel documents to ascertain if he had committed any offence and would not speculate on whether an offence had been committed until it had the chance to investigate the case.

“We view problems like overstaying very seriously because committing an offence overseas also affects the image of the country but we have to look at all aspects on the case before deciding if action will be taken.

(In other sources such as the NST, the words "disgraced" and "shame" were also noted. Sigh.)

The strange thing is the offence has yet to be committed. But yet they wish to check her documents, as if to find any irregularity to prosecute her with. And with all the talk about “the image of the country”, Abdul Rahman Othman totally ignored the fact that Malaysia is in the spotlight here, not the trans woman. Malaysia, unlike countries such as Singapore, has stringent rules that discriminate against transgender people. In most parts of Malaysia, trans women are not allowed to have female looking photos on their passports, let alone identification cards and vice versa. And the gender marker on these documents places Malaysian transgender people at risk of detention and interrogation every time they go overseas. It is also placing them in danger of harassment and ridicule from some immigration officers across the seas. So the true “image of the country” here is being represented by Malaysia themselves. Which is probably what the couple is hoping to capitalize on, and bring awareness to this issue about this country.

Then came “journalist” Dharmender “Singh” to misrepresent us totally. “He” and "The Star" seem to have confusion in addressing us, but then settled for transvestite for the title and transsexual for the body, even though these two words mean two totally different groups of people! And just as the previous two "news articles", "they" continuously mis-gender Fatine with male pronouns. And by publishing the same "story" two days in a row, "they" seem to have an obsession with this couple. And it sickens me that the nice couple only wants to grow in love together, but our super shallow "immigration officials" and "media", are not helping the situation. Instead, "they" used this opportunity to sensationalize the "issue". When you start to mind other people’s personal relationships and make a mockery out of it, it means you have downgraded your own self respect.

Oh, in case you are wondering what is with the quotation marks, Dharmender “Singh” wrote this:
It was reported on Sunday that Mohammed Fazdil or Fatine, 36, who recently "married” property maintenance company owner Ian Young in a civil partnership, was denied his visa in September on grounds that his passport contained an incorrect photograph. (bold emphasis mine)

And on the caption for the photograph, this “journalist” wrote:
In trouble: Mohammed Fazdil or Fatine was told to return to Malaysia after his visa had expired. This picture is courtesy of Ian Young, whom he ‘married’ in Britain. (bold emphasis mine)

It was insulting enough for this “Singh” to “write” using “quotations marks” to express his “opinion” to “invalidate” a situation. But when “he” totally went out of his “way” to use “it” to “invalidate” their wonderful marriage, I need to seriously doubt that “he” is a “writer” after all. Maybe “he” is just a jerk. And "The Star" is "the paper" with no integrity.


Yuki's thoughts:

The pick of the most stupid, freakish and atrocious blog commentary on this matter must come from this extremist fundie. He seems so intoxicated and drunk into his own world, he thinks all transgender people are homosexuals and went out of his mind to rant about it. He also thinks transgender people are more powerful to bring the end of the world than global warming and war. With the sprouting of myths about homosexuality to making himself totally devoid of brain cells to understand anything about sexual orientation and gender identity, he proved his evil heart by hatemongering against LGBT people. And adding to that, he uses Islam as a base to his claims, even though the word homosexual never appeared in their Quran, and idiots like him likes to distort other people’s love and relationship, into just lust and sex. And transsexuality, the medical condition, was never in their Quran either. Amazing how sotongs like him, loves to make force connections to religion when they just simply hate people they love to discriminate.

And personally, I find it very amusing when people claim I am homosexual, when I am a closeted asexual.

Well, at least all of us trans women get some 'pahala' each for the nonsense by this idiot, especially for calling us "pondan".

4 comments:

Mikayla Weighill said...

What a backwards messed up place. Is the entire place like that? More likely is just a small group of fundies causing all the ruckus, like they were an army of millions.
The same thing happens here, the only difference is that the scales have tipped and the religious wingnuts just make themselves look dumber with each comment. They are slowly slipping into irrelevancey now, so much so that alot of our churches are feverishly trying to modernize and realize the error of their ways, and try to be more inclusive of the glbt set.

Yuki Choe said...

@ Hi all,

What we can do now is wait to see if enough international pressure is generated, as I forseen that as the reason they came out public about their situation. Funny thing is, if it did not involve a transsexual female, there would be almost no bias on any actions undertaken. Let us pray for them, and for Fatine to be safe across these trying times. Thank you for caring for her. I appreciate it.

Anonymous said...

One more day of sensationalized news http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/12/3/nation/5227020&sec=nation

Now she faces threats. What a f*cking country?

Anonymous said...

Awesome, now they wanna strip her and see whether she has 2 sexual organs http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/45367-zul-noordin-hardliner-backs-fatine-transsexual-to-come-home

What is wrong with this country?