Transgender community fears threat posed by new law

Prone to persecution: Chika, a trans woman holding her boyfriend’s hand during an interview at their rented room in Jakarta. — Reuters

Transgender woman Chika Ananda Putrie wakes every morning in her decrepit rented room in a Jakarta slum, worried for her safety because of her gender identity.

She saw some of her worst fears come true last month, when the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, and its third-largest democracy, banned people from having sex outside marriage or even living together, at the risk of prison time.