Criminalisation and Care: Indonesian Muslim Mass Organisations’ Perspectives on LGBT People

This chapter examines the attitudes of MuhammadiyahMuhammadiyah and Nahdlatul UlamaNahdlatul Ulama (NU) toward LGBTLGBT people who have been facing growing hostility from the country’s predominantly Muslim society since 2016. My analysis draws on insights from the discourse of criminalisationCriminalisation and careCare that has characterized the debate over sexual and genderGender minorities in IndonesiaIndonesia. This chapter, drawing on interviews and desktop research, demonstrates that the Muslim mass organisations MuhammadiyahMuhammadiyah and Nahdlatul UlamaNahdlatul Ulama (NU) display ambivalent attitudes between criminalisationCriminalisation and careCare towards LGBTLGBT people. Focusing on Muhammadiyah and their autonomous women’s organisation AisyiyahAisyiyah it argues that the organisations` leaders at the national level are more inclined to criminalise sexual and genderGender minorities, while at the regional level they are more likely to practice careCare for minorities, through equal cooperation and interpersonal relations. One reason for this difference is the distance or proximity to the people concerned. Those in charge at the national level are far away from the grassroots, while those at the regional level work more closely with the people.