(S)he Is Beautiful

Monday, is the day when everybody wake up from a long rest in weekend, so do I. I have a class in Monday, so I have to wake up and study. In my sixth semester of my study in English Department Universitas Gadjah Mada, I take a creative writing class. The lecture is Mas Dalih, an Indonesian travel blogger. As a travel blogger he often leaves the class and travel to a new place. He had been in Bali in last two weeks, so he got his friend who called Mbak Abmi take his place to teach us. She ever taught us in a week before and played us a movie about how should we deal with plastic bags, BAG IT. I had the review of this film in my previous post. But this Monday, she brought a guest. When I went to the class I saw a black-long hair beautiful man smiling to me. I was wondering, who was the beautiful creature with such pointed nose and proportional body. This man sat in the corner of the classroom. I talked to my friends about this stranger, and in the edge of our curiosity, my mind whispered, “ Wait!! Who is that? Is this beautiful a man? Or a woman?”

Our curiosity had been answered. “It’s HE”, suddenly Mbak Abmi said. I smiled, stabilized my mind, and tried to focus my sight at him, yes HIM. I was on my own thought when Mbak Abmi asked us to interview him under five topics in group. It’s extremely unusual for me especially to interview someone, a beautiful MAN, a transvestite, in such a big class.
 

This beautiful walked in front of the class. She introduced herself, Olivia Sonya Aresta, simply we could call her Mbak Sonya. She was born in Klaten, Central Java, and now lives in Yogyakarta since she took her vocational education. As a transvestite she had to work hard to life. She tried many jobs, as a online shop seller, beauty consultant, bridal makeup, and now she is joining an organization known as Perkumpulan Keluarga Berencana Indonesia (Indonesia’s Association of Family Planning – PKBI), an organization which concern about marginal society. For a ‘lady’ like her, all she did is incredible!
 

More than anything else, identity was one first thing she had to find. To be like her, a transvestite or waria (wanita pria: lady man), she had to find reality acceptance. However, her own mother could not tolerate her unintended condition. Somehow, when she was a child, her parents did not allow her to play with the boys who always mischievous and often disturb her. So, she played with her girlfriends. It made her used to play with dolls, make up, female outfits and all the girl-things. Day by day, she played with girlfriends and their stuff; she became one of them, a one to be like them, a girl trapped in a body of a boy. She changed her appearance, her attitude, and her way of speaking to be like girl, because she enjoyed it. She finally found out her identity.

Otherwise, happy ever after did not exist. The finding of new identity gave her a pain. Some friend noticed her dressed up like a girl in a mall, she threw her shoes at them, tried to safe her dignity. She did not want to be scolded and alienated for being a transvestite. Her family kicked her out. To Yogyakarta, she started her new life.

Moreover, Yogyakarta was the last place she went to settle in, to home her new identity. She went to Solo, Bandung, Jakarta, and Bali, but Yogyakarta was a pleasant place to stay. “Yogyakarta atmosphere is different from others, it makes me have to stay”, she admitted. In addition to that, she found her confidence when she helped the victims of Yogyakarta’s 2006 earthquake, she became a volunteer. She also learned many things when her transvestite friends took care of her as she had to be hospitalized. Her beautiful soul made her concern about others, she became a volunteer in PKBI to help people especially transvestites fighting HIV/AIDS. Actually, what she had done was to prove that a transvestite or waria is not as dark as people thought, but a nocturnal liked her can change the world point of view, by doing something beneficial to others.

There is no doubt about her, what she did to prove that she has something priceless, and a beautiful soul. YES. S(he) is beautiful.