ALSO Directory

I've been cleaning up my room lately, mostly because I'm procrastinating studies for my final exam next week. But I'm also cleaning due to the fact that my parents will be staying with me when visiting next month, and I don't want them to find any gay related reading materials or pictures lying around the house. They'll be visiting because if all goes well with this semester's exams, I'll be graduating next month, so they're here to attend my graduation ceremony :)

While cleaning through the rubbish, I came across this book called the 'Also Directory', it was a directory I obtained from the Uni's Queer Department.



This book is basically a directory of all the gay and gay-friendly business establishments. It has everything from doctors, to dentists, to veterinaries and also from legal advisers, to counselling, to event organisers. So instead of a yellow pages, its like a mini pink pages.

I thought to myself, this is actually pretty cool. Its sort of a way for us gays and lesbians to stick together, for us to help out our own gay business owners. And then I thought wouldn't it be great if Malaysia had something like that as well, as I'm pretty sure there isn't such a thing back home. That way we can support our local gay business owners, ensure that our 'pink' dollars are spent at the right places to help out our own community.

But then just as this 'brilliant' idea manifested itself, reality dawned upon me that Malaysia just isn't ready for this yet. If such a directory was made back home, what it'll probably end up becoming is a hit-list for homophobic bigots. And the business owners will probably be targeted.

Its sad really, coz there are a lot of gay business owners in Malaysia, and if there really was such a directory, I'm sure it'll benefit a lot of parties, both the business owners and customers. Unfortunately, with homophobia so evidently present, it'll be hard to ensure the safety and well being of these businesses once such a list is compiled and made public. In fact I'm sure at this point in time, most owners wouldn't even want to be placed on such a 'hit-list' for fear of any homophobic reactions...

Would straight people stop shopping there? Would homophobic people vandalise the business premise? Who knows, but personally I hope all these bigotry back home will end... at least in my life time... Then maybe we can have a 'Juga' Directory, which is also translated to malay :)

Signing out.