A Case Study in South East Asia

LGBTI people have been the subjects of discrimination for centuries. People can act negatively, namely discriminating toward LGBTI people by ignoring them or much more extreme, killing them. In the 21st century, with the emergence of the global LGBTI rights movement, it is impossible to ignore queer people, and it is illegal to kill, at least in most countries in the world. Censorship and silencing voices of LGBTI people thus become a common practice in many countries these days against LGBTI movements. Even in the United States, a country that upholds freedom of speech, the escalation of book bans and censorship in classrooms and school libraries is alarming. The incidents of book bans are prevalent in many states like Texas and Florida. This one-credit course seeks to understand the growing international polarization on LGBTI rights by focusing on a case study of a gay book banned lately in Malaysia, a country in southeast Asia.