Budi Sudarto, 39
Independent trainer in Intersectionality and Inclusion
Cis male/gender fluid, Gay
He/him, sometimes she/her
Budi’s coming out journey began in his childhood in his hometown of Bandung, Indonesia where he enjoyed playing dress-ups and realising his first attractions to other boys. It was also here that he was teased in school, being called a “banci” or sissy.
Moving to Jakarta for high school, Budi enrolled in a bigger school and tried to blend in.
“The teasing didn’t stop completely but it was a lot less and believe or not, I joined the Islamic youth group there,” explains Budi.
Budi’s coming out journey as a gay man continued to flourish when he arrived as an international student at Monash University over 20 years ago, eventually leading him to be involved in the gay community in Melbourne, in professional and voluntary roles across different community organisations such as the Victorian AIDS Council (now Thorne Harbour Health) and the Australian GLBTIQ Multicultural Council where he currently serves as Vice President.
It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that Budi embarked on a second coming out journey, where he began to explore his gender-fluidity following an encounter with a sexual partner.
“This one time my f*ck buddy asked if I would consider putting on some female lingerie for our play time and I was so confronted with it, so I pondered on why I felt so confronted with it and realised it all goes back to the time at school when I was called banci when the whole gender issue for me started. I realised I never fully fit in as a boy but also didn’t want to be fully woman. It was a confusing time, and I remember thinking that life would have been easier if I had been born a girl so I didn’t have to feel guilty for liking boys and didn’t have to be teased for not being masculine,” Budi discloses before adding, “Even as a gay man, there was some level of expectation to be butch or masculine so I never had the space to explore anything else.”
The experienced unravelled the desire to explore his feminine side so Budi took the opportunity to experiment with cross-dressing at a costume party and the positive experience led him to be more comfortable in embracing his gender fluidity.
At around the same time, Budi began to rediscover his faith in Islam following a renewed understanding of the scriptures in relation to gender and sexuality.
“You know, coming out is a continuous process… For me, it’s been a process of reconciling my sexuality and my cultural heritage, to now reconciling my gender and faith which is still ongoing,” reflects Budi of his journey.