ABSTRACT

Same-sex sexual acts became headline news in Malaysia in 1998 when the then deputy prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, was deposed and charged with sodomy (Spaeth 1998). Anwar had been highly critical of corruption and cronyism within his own party, the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), while openly expressing disagreement with Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s economic policies. Many saw the sodomy charge and imprisonment as political retribution from the prime minister (Berman 2008). The trials imprinted upon the collective psyche of the nation the criminality of the act, the stigma of the accusation and the otherness of homosexuals in Malaysia.